


Myosotis

by LookingForHell



Category: Amazing Spider-Man (2012), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Amnesia, Crazy!Loki, Daddy Issues, F/M, FrostIron - Freeform, M/M, Mention of other pairings, Redemption, The Chitauri are not happy, Torture, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2017-11-09 20:24:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 65,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForHell/pseuds/LookingForHell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki is struck (quite literally) with a case of highly justified amnesia, and soon finds himself in the somewhat sporadic care of one Peter Parker, who can't quite figure out why his new friend has the Avengers after his head (or why Tony Stark keeps showing up wherever Loki goes- you know, for business and stuff).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I had a hard time deciding whether or not to post this now, since I have a few other fic I'm working on, but I thought I'd celebrate Comic Con with my first story on any site to feature Peter Parker. This is frostiron, ladies and gents, but sorry to say it'll be somewhat slow in the coming. My take at this prompt:
> 
>  
> 
> Teejaystumbles: "After being brought back to Asgard after the Avengers Loki gets stripped of his powers by Odin, who is really very not amused by all that Loki has done on Midgard. Because Loki is Loki and loves being a sarcastic, accusing, still slightly mad, bad-mouthed bitch, Odin looses his temper and hits him pretty hard around the head, sending him down to Earth again to live as a human and see what happens. Loki looses all his memories due to the hit and fall and can’t remember even his name. He manages to settle in in a new life. He meets nice people who help him. He works at a café. When he’s not pranking him he’s flirting with his co-worker, and is genuinely happy.
> 
> Until one day a certain billionaire playboy philanthropist Loki doesn’t remember to have ever met before walks into his café and proceeds to try and rip his head off - after finishing his coffee (because it was too good to waste dammit)."

"Remove his binds."

Very few times in history-human or otherwise- had three words had such staggering consequences. (Only thrice, in fact, had Asgard seen such an event and earth was lucky enough to know of only five recorded incidences- none of which, thank you very much, involved a declaration of love. This was mostly due to the human's inability to take emotion seriously, but in part because it was so easy to make excuses if the other party appeared less interested than was exactly _ideal_.) And during none of those times before had said consequences spread between realms, not to Asgard or Midgard or Helheim or any combination of the three, but to every one of the nine realms and one or two beyond even that.

Loki knew none of that, and neither yet did Odin. Or perhaps he did, the Allfather always seemed to carry more knowledge than his mind was comfortable with having, and Loki's fingers itched now more than ever to break him open and see how that brain worked. Probably not for the best. A smashed skull rarely revealed anything of use, and he assumed that would do him no good but to anger Thor into smashing _his_ skull, and Odin would probably just recover anyway. So, he was left to pick apart his adoptive father's mind in the more traditional sense, which was also-unfortunately- not the literal.

The kept his eyes impassive, however, and yet that did not prevent a look of mistrust from Thor, and something more than that in Heimdall's blank eyes. Neither of them seemed willing to follow Odin's order, although Loki was injured and unarmed, and with the three of them blocking the only exit from the bifrost even he didn't have many means to get out of this situation. Not yet, anyway. "Father, now?" Thor wondered, uncertain.

"Now. I wish to speak with Loki before he is led to his trial." Odin replied calmly- not the calm of a leader (arrogant, proud, demanding and oh, was that meant to be _frightening?_ ) but of a father (disappointed, quiet, a little sad if you wanted to be just a tad too melodramatic). Loki returned his gaze with far more malice, unable to make a real response owing to the metal gag clamped over his lips. "I wish to know what he has to say to me, not to the court."

_You're not my father, you should take pills for narcolepsy, and that eyepatch looks stupid._ Yes, that summed it up nicely, but again Loki couldn't speak a word of it and narrowed his eyebrows sharply to convey his feelings as best as possible.

Whether he succeeded or not, Thor and Odin shared a long glance before the prince nodded, dutiful and wary, and turned back to his not-brother. "Do not waste this chance, brother." He warned gruffly ( _not_ brother) before reaching up to unlock the specially-designed muzzle his mortal friend had devised. His hands came next, but Loki had really only been interested in that first part, and his grin showed both his mirth and his less-than-friendly expectations for the upcoming conversation.

"Ah, _Allfather_ , how long it's been. I missed your… ah… maybe… hm, I suppose I didn't miss you at all, now that I think about it."

Thor growled, but Odin remained outwardly unmoved. "Heimdall, guard the bridge. I do not want any interference."

As if Heimdall wouldn't be fully aware of any attempts to approach the bifrost, regardless of position or orders given him. Odin was only trying to give them a semblance of solitude, some show no doubt intended to make Loki think he was being treated well. In retrospect he probably was (he hadn't been whipped or anything, was Asgard going _soft?_ ) considering how high caliber a traitor he had become, but Loki was not placated by the special treatment. He was a prince, the lesser of two or not, and special treatment was exactly what he expected.

So he only raised an eyebrow as Heimdall bowed, said a quick "Yes, my liege", and stepped outside to give them the illusion of… nothing, really, because Thor was there, rendering privacy impossible.

"Well, Allfather? You have me at your mercy. Now what do you want?" Loki wondered with the manner of one so bored he could barely muster the energy, conscious of Thor's presence only inches away. The Thunderer would not allow any sudden movements.

"You have never wanted Midgard, Loki." Odin scolded as he stepped forward, stopping only a foot away from his prisoner. "Are you so distraught by your origins that you would pay the price of a planet merely for revenge against Thor? When he has done you no wrong?"

"You think I attacked Midgard to infuriate _Thor?_ Oh, please. That was a lovely bonus, I must admit, but my dear _brother_ -as he still pretends we are- is hardly worth the effort." Loki hoped the full effects of his sneer was visible from the side, it would be such a shame if the blow did not hit Thor with full force. By the slight wince he gave, Loki assumed it had. "I was a King, and he forced me from the throne. I was in search of a new domain, and the humans seemed the easiest pickings. Unfortunately, Thor became involved, and those mortals therefore survived long enough to undo my allies." Who really must be in search of a better system for battle- those warriors, individually, had been nothing short of pathetic, and what sort of species dropped dead when its home base exploded? Simply impractical, evolution had not treated the Chitauri kindly.

"So you killed the mortals in droves and suffered their planet an invasion out of mere jealousy and misguided indignation?" Odin shook his head, eye gloomy as if he had thought better of Loki. The Trickster bristled, more ready than ever to have his blood running over the floor. "You think like a child, Loki, with cruelty unbefitting even a tyrant. You do not deserve the power you wield if you would use it only against others."

"Oh, I apologize, I thought that's what the mortals were for." Loki replied, feigning a startled look. "They are just so useless, you know, I thought- well, if they really do count as people I suppose I could do them a favor. Would you like me to set up a soup kitchen? A garbage dump? I hear _flies_ love those."

Thor growled, and his heavy hand took Loki's shoulder- no doubt he was about to issue a reprimand, but a look from Odin silenced him. There was sharpness to his eye now, the touch of his temper visible behind forced calm intended to keep Loki from "falling" any further, wounded by harsh words. As if he were so fragile. "I would have you see what you have done, and regret it. This is not who you are, Loki."

"Oh, it is. I know now who I am- and I must thank you, Allfather, for that enlightening revelation." Loki's grin grew and turned feral, eager. "I have found a purpose. Haven't you ever killed a human, Odin? It's a wonderful feeling. You see, our blood means so _little._ What good is killing a man who can never die? The mortals however-oh, when _their_ blood drains over your hands you know you have truly beaten time itself. What little they had, whatever minimal purpose in the universe they may have served- it vanishes. _That_ is true victory, not this mockery of warfare against the giants that you Asgardians participate in."

"That is slaughter, not battle." Odin snapped, calm fading away into a barely-concealed display of disgust. This was a warrior race, one that prided itself on organized barbarianism and the glory of death in a fair battle and the pride of too much meat in the arms and none in the head.

Loki grinned and leaned forward, within inches of his feigned father's face. Thor growled and pulled him back, his grip so hard now that it was nearly crushing, but Loki did not care. "Yes. It is slaughter, and madness. Is not madness what _I_ live for, Allfather? What I _thrive_ on?"

"Once I had hoped not." Odin replied, gripping Gungnir tightly enough that the spear trembled. "You do not command madness, Loki, you have been consumed by it."

"I rule it!" Loki shouted in return, stepping forward only to be immediately halted by Thor, who looked as if the effort not to speak his anger was causing him physical pain. "As _you_ rule idiocy and the futility of tradition, and the science of failure in any form that it may be applied. You are a _fool_ , Allfather, and Asgard is a wretched loss awaiting destruction for its own good. I will grant it to you, to all of you. Would you like to watch that? Your lives mean less to me than even the humans, Odin, but rest assured I will not waste them."

"Enough." Odin's voice shook, with hatred or fear (unlikely, but it would have been wonderful to see all the same) or something far more weak (sadnesssurprisedistressand _!_ ).

Loki was not finished, however, and curled his lip back somewhere between a grin and a snarl, words spitting through his teeth. "You seem to care for me even now, do you? Then perhaps I will spare you. You may watch, with Heimdall's ever-seeing eye that I'll have gauged from his self-righteous head, as I destroy all you once held dear. If you love your _children_ so strongly then I hope you will see their deaths- young Balder can be first, I'd hate for Thor to miss that after all. He is the only youth I'll slaughter, Odin, he should feel flattered. So _special_. He is still so small, I doubt if I've missed his first word yet. Maybe you'll hear it- begging for mummy or daddy with whatever breath he has left, choking on his own blood-"

" _Enough!"_ Thor now, truly shaken and a little frightened- either of the possibility, or the fact that Loki was speaking so violently, with such conviction and excitement. Eagerness. Loki ignored him.

"-and then, _then_ , I will find Thor. Frigga too may watch, but I won't leave her- I'll wring her neck, with little Balder's innards. Now wouldn't _that_ be ironic, Allfather? I'll kill them all after that, the whole lot of this realm, and you will never follow. I will ensure it- let every moment of your worthless eternity be spent remembering what you brought about by trying to enforce your pathetic morals on one such as I. What _you_ cannot and will not be able to prevent, all the while knowing that not one drop of their blood was worth so much to me as an ounce of fool's gold- _that_ is the summation of your selves, Odin, a pathetic farce of living that I will be so _merciful_ to end!" Loki was breathing hard, shouting not with anger but anticipation- he wanted it, not to kill the Asgardians (they truly meant so little dead, after all, but this realm was beautiful alive and it was such a shame, really, that he didn't know how badly he might actually want what he spoke of, or might not) but to see that pain in Odin's face. He wore it now, yes, but with not nearly enough strength.

"You do not know what you are saying." Odin said after a long moment, emotions slowly subsiding but still there, waiting to be called forward. "Have you lost your mind as well as your purpose, my son?"

No, of course not. Well, perhaps, it really depended on your definition of the word. He still physically had a brain, and he was every bit as intelligent as ever he had been. Loki grinned, all playful now, and actually deigned to wink. "Oh, now, don't be calling me that. You know what I tend to do to my fathers, it's a bit messy."

"I do not know what has incited you to speak this way, but stop now." Thor snapped, and Loki turned to him at last with an expression that practically defined disinterest. "Your mind is ill. Say no more that you cannot take back, Loki."

"Oh? Are you mad that I threatened your dear little brother?" Loki wondered, laughing at the irrationality of it. There was little chance he would kill Balder-at his current age, anyway- and even littler that he would ever succeed in single-handedly outfighting all of Asgard. Did he want it? Perhaps (he hadn't decided yet, it was a bit hard to when just the concept made them so wonderfully angry with him) or perhaps not. He'd have to try it to find out. And what if he did, really? The world hardly needed a god of light, it was far too bright already. "I think I'd be doing Frigga a favor, really. It's not as if that harlot needs any more children sucking at her breast. One has to wonder who their fathers _really_ must be at the rate she's popping them out-"

The moment was blinding, really, to say the least. Loki's mind had been seeing everything far too quickly lately (more quickly than it actually could have possibly, actually, been happening, but he liked life better that way even if it made decision a bit fuzzy) but even he could not keep up with Thor's placating shout, the sudden lack of pressure on his shoulder as the thunderer stepped forward, not to mention the lightning-fast swing of Odin's spear, the blade of it toned to his control by thousands of years of warfare. And he definitely couldn't comprehend the force it held or the crack that echoed from his mind outward and brought Heimdall's attention their way ( _oh, perhaps he_ had _blocked them out, out of a courtesy, now why would he do a thing like-)_ and light, burning, moving, noise, roaring and-

At least the darkness was something he could understand, and Loki fell back into it with gratitude- or, well, something like it anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Okay, you don’t even know what I’m going to do yet.”
> 
> “Yes, I do. You’re going to go home, spin that same story for Aunt May, then adopt an amnesiac who’s probably twice your age.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooo chapter two~ Hope you guys are liking it so far. Loki's name is going to be funky for just a little while guys, and same goes for his behavior- concussions don't leave you feeling your best you know. I spent a few hours on the phone with hospitals discussing their protocol for amnesia patients, but things were simplified a bit for the sake of getting on with the fic. Hopefully nobody minds.
> 
> Also, there will be Amazing Spiderman spoilers now. You have been warned- this takes place awhile after that movie, I'd say half a year or so. (Also yes, this will be the ordinary chapter length. The delay however, hopefully not regular. I'm going to be busy for awhile though- on top of camp we now have rehearsal, which is awesome but might slow down updates for various stories.)
> 
> EDIT: A chunk just kind of vanished from this recently? Fixed it.

"Peter, I'm pretty sure this is illegal."

"What gives you that idea?"

"Probably the twelve signs we've already passed that say "No entrance permitted past one AM, violators will be prosecuted". Or women's intuition, it's never failed me yet."

No kidding. If it came down to it, Peter would probably put Gwen's "intuition" above even his spider-senses in any situation where he felt caution was actually a necessity. In Central Park, however, he felt he was more than adequate protection for the both of them (the supervillains had avoided this place so far, it seemed like they all had a proper respect for tourism and tacky statues). "I think I've done the law's job enough times to merit harmlessly breaking it every now and again. Hey, Balto."

The dog statue had always been one of his favorites, just because it was so wonderfully out of place beside all the imposing war heroes and political leaders. Good for Balto. "You know, I'm ninety percent sure it doesn't work that way." Gwen replied, in that pretending-not-to-be sarcastic way of hers that was somehow ten times more sarcastic than he could ever manage.

Peter grinned at her, knowing she wouldn't protest now that they were looking at the interesting stuff. She had a soft spot for the park- _everyone_ did- and had always despised the crowds, mostly because the sheer amount of untrustworthy activity made Peter's senses go haywire and she hated the way he kept jerking his head every which-way in search of murderous intent. So a nighttime stroll had to be the best decision, and really after all the times he had saved this city Peter thought he was more than entitled to an undisturbed date with his girlfriend, somewhere almost normal. It wasn't like they were alone, either- people "broke in" to the park at night all the time. New York really didn't sleep, thankfully, so the city lights were enough to keep the flowers and statues and what-have-you all lit up (also, unfortunately, enough to light _them_ up, but Peter was really counting on nobody looking) enough that they could get a good look at things.

And Gwen wanted to do just that. _Actually_ get a good look at things- a good, long look, that Peter figured would have gotten really, really boring after about forty minutes if every nerve in his body hadn't gone haywire after exactly twenty-two and a half.

He'd had trouble with the Sense before, but it had never actually made his head _ache_ , not even when a bullet was headed for his chest. The pain lasted only about two seconds, but subsided into something more familiar and probably only minimally less dangerous. "Something's here."

"Anyone we know?" Gwen asked quickly, not at all stunned by the idea of a horrible threat stalking them through Central Park.

"It's not an attack or anything, it's just… something, here." No threat to him, directly anyway, but something all the same. He looked around, eyebrows drawn together and web canisters ready if anything got to close to either of them.

"Something." Gwen's voice had dropped, become not-quite-hushed in that way it always did when they were watching a movie either particularly horrific, or unbearably sad. (Not the Titanic though, she was always too focused on trying to figure out whether that thing Rose was floating on could have held them both or not to care much about the whole freezing-boyfriend thing.)

Peter groaned inwardly and followed her gaze, not all that startled to spot three specks of blood polka-dotting the floor about eight feet away. "Wait here." She nodded (he knew, even with his back turned), and he kept half his awareness on her and half on the blood as he walked forward.

Really, blood in New York wasn't as uncommon as he'd have liked. In Central Park, however, that sort of thing was almost unheard of, and the stuff on the floor was both fresh, and _way_ dark. From down deep, then, as was the small smear of it (like a hand coated in the stuff had scraped over the ground, darker where the palm had pushed _someone_ upright) just a few feet away. More dots, a few lines, one almost-puddle. It was like a macabre trail of breadcrumbs, and Peter beckoned for Gwen to keep within his sight but well back as he followed it, becoming slowly aware of the smell of burning flesh and hair. God, how he _hated_ knowing what that smelled like.

The tingling stopped around the same time that the sounds of city traffic and distant drunkenness broke by a ragged sort of breathing, audible only because Peter was listening for it (and because he was, well, _Peter_ and his ears could work like that). He rounded a statue of Alice in Wonderland (another misfit statue, but not one that really seemed to stand for much other than acid-trip literature), semi-crouched and web canisters ready, eyes trained on the ground so that he caught the "something" as soon as he was within sight.

It was a _lot_ of blood. It ran down the steps like a gory waterfall, a small, steady drip that trailed back to a rapidly replenishing pool, a man's split temple gushing onto the stone. He'd moved before he'd fallen, there were signs of it where he'd slid around, huge streaks down the side of the statue.  How the hell was he alive? Because he was breathing, audibly and painfully, breath tossing aside the small clouds of smoke rising from his hair, singed and reeking and he was going to wonder how that had happened later, after they'd made it to the hospital.

"Right. Safe to come over, Gwen, but it's um- it's not exactly pretty," Peter called. She peeked her head around the statue and gagged at the sight, ducking away for a few moments before returning, pale and a little nervous but purposefully stalwart.

She'd seen Peter looking bad enough, though, that she joined him crouched on the ground and only winced sympathetically when she reached out to feel the stranger's gaunt cheek. "He's freezing. Do you think he was mugged? I didn't see anybody else around here."

Peter checked the man's pockets ( _"Honestly, Peter?"_ ) and found them empty- no wallet, no phone, no cash. "Looks like it. Here, hold this to his head, see if you can slow that down." He pulled off his jacket and offered it over, waiting until his hands were free before bending forward carefully to slide open the man's eyelid. Pupils huge but uneven, and completely unresponsive to the light from his phone, the waving of his fingers, even being blown on quickly. "He's either dead, or he has a concussion."

"He's breathing."

"Concussion then."

Gwen rolled her eyes, in a way he liked to assume was fond, and lessened the pressure she was applying to the man's head wound. He hadn't even twitched in response to the contact, so Peter assumed the injury had gone numb, meaning it was more likely to be fatal. Great. "Think he'd stick to it if I made a stretcher out of the webs?"

"Yes. We should probably check the back of his head too, in case he cracked it when he fell- I'll call an ambulance."

"Ambulance? 911 will _not_ be happy that we were in here." At closer inspection the wound looked like it was from a blade, not a fall, and Peter wouldn't have trusted the both of them to move him even without sign of criminal activity. "Do you know any shady doctors who could do this for us?"

The obvious aside, there was more to worry about than the slash to the temple (which was too wide to be from any knife Peter knew of). There were cuts and scrapes all over his face, most of which looked older but had been torn open by… something. A victim of repeat abuse, maybe? And again, his hair was smoking, _literally_ smoking, long and black and curling at the edges where three or four inches of it had already been burnt beyond repair. His neck had caught some of the effects, but none of the damage was too bad. Peter hoped the guy wasn't vain- his clothes were gone, his face battered and hair out for the count. That cut was probably going to leave one nasty scar, too.

Gwen had ignored his "protests", and her phone was out before Peter could make any pretend attempts to stop her. "Hello? My boyfriend and I found somebody, and he's badly injured. We think he has a concussion, could I get an ambulance out here, please? Central Park, by the Alice statue."

"We're going to get arrested." Peter whined, failing to ignore the pitiful little shudder of pain their mystery man gave as his breath began to lose whatever rhythm it had had. Yeah, he definitely needed to get to the hospital, quickly. "Or are we protected under the good Samaritan law? Doesn't matter, Aunt May's going to kill me whether I land in jail or not."

It was a joke, and Gwen very well knew it (if he'd worried that she wouldn't, he wouldn't have dared make it, after all), but Peter didn't find much humor in his own words. From the look of the stranger, not calling the hospital was very likely to kill _him_ , and so he only helped elevate the man's legs up against a hastily procured rock and settled back at his side. Then there was not much else to do but wait, and silently pray he didn't have to watch this guy die without even knowing his name.

* * *

"No, we've never met before, Gwen and I just found him today. The park was deserted, but we saw him hobbling toward it and decided to follow."

Telling the story for a fourth time was making it a lot easier for Peter not to screw up the imagined details, and he didn't even need to glance at Gwen anymore to confirm that they were spinning the same yarn. The cops, the emergency response, the receptionist, and now the doctor- the dark haired stranger was going to be a celebrity by the time he woke up. Hopefully not, actually; if this ended up on the news Aunt May would probably kill her reckless nephew, or whoever had beaten this guy up would stroll on back to finish the job. "We wanted to make sure he wasn't covered in someone _else's_ blood before we called an ambulance, you know? And her dad was with the police, we were _pretty_ sure we could handle one mugger. I've taken Tae Kwon Do."

It was worth the whole story just to see the Doctor's astonishment- she must have been ready to cry when she imagined Peter's upbringing. Of course, he _could_ have handled any trouble, but this woman had no idea that she was talking with her friendly neighborhood Spiderman. He just sounded like some moron kid who was wholly convinced he was immortal, and relied on the television to teach him how people took on the bad guys. "Right. Well, that's actually a horrible idea, but I'm glad you found him. We should be grateful your girlfriend knew what to do, at least."

Leg's up, body warm, lots of shaking and forced alertness (or a semblance of it, anyway). It had all helped, but Peter resented that the doctor just assumed all the protocol had been Gwen's idea. " _We_ took a few first aid classes." More like they had common sense, but doctors never seemed to trust in that. "So, how is he?"

"Well, you were right about the concussion. He's also got a few cracked ribs, some internal bleeding scattered over his body, and a bit of a fever. But nothing fatal, he should be out of here in about two days." The doctor explained, checking her clipboard to confirm these bare-bone details. Peter was convinced they just did that to look more important.

Whatever, the guy was alive- he felt a surge of relief and smiled to show it, which had the doctor mimicking his mirth. Hospitals were way too sullen, a little smiling could do them good. "So do rescuers get special privileges, or do I have to wait for visiting hours?"

Peter wanted to get the whole story before he went home- Gwen was falling half asleep in one of those awful plastic chairs, but he was too wired for it. If somebody _was_ following him, they weren't some simple thugs- the spider sense had made that clear enough. "Normally you wouldn't have been allowed past the reception area. But we need to observe his speech to see how badly addled he really is, and we think that if he's a victim he'll be more calm if his "rescuer" is there when his head clears up. You said he was conscious at points?"

"More like he couldn't decide whether his eyes were supposed to be open or not while he was asleep but yeah, he woke up for a bit." Even talked, though he'd been so badly slurred that it was almost an insult to coherent speech. The whole deal with concussion patients was keeping them awake for at least twelve hours, but it had been a lost cause from the get-go. Peter had his fingers crossed that there wouldn't be too many ill effects to thank this for.

"Well, if we're lucky he'll remember that. A familiar face should do some good," The doctor tucked her clipboard under her arm, and Peter felt strangely inadequate without one, like his thoughts couldn't be recorded and therefore were less important. No doubt that was the clipboard's true purpose, why else wouldn't doctors just get an iPhone like everyone else in New York? "If you want, you can go in there now- he's awake, but alone for the time being."

"He's up?" Peter glanced at the room, but it didn't do him any good. The windows were curtained and the door windowless- the doctors probably had a way of watching him, but they'd given their patient plenty of privacy. "Can Gwen come with me? She's a lot better with people than I am, and she's a pretty girl. That usually helps."

Gwen blinked open one eye, smiling slightly at the compliment but rolling her eyes at him for giving it. "Don't let him fool you, Peter's actually a bit of a genius. If you don't mind, ma'am? I wanted to ask him a few questions."

"It's a meeting, not an interrogation. Just get a basic story, nothing too stressful, and find out his name. Hopefully he has family nearby," the Doctor (Miss Kirby, according to her badge) lowered her clipboard at last, tapping it against the outside of her thigh. "Be prepared for him to have some trouble speaking- he's lucky he didn't go blind from a blow like that. If he seems too dazed or agitated give an excuse to leave, then send one of us inside. I'll be watching, but some people tend to find the sight of the coat unnerving when they first wake up."

The both of them took that as permission, so it surprised nobody when Gwen turned immediately toward the door barring her from the injured man. She had a bit of a protective streak that Peter found both adorable, and a little unfortunate- it drove her crazy how often he got himself hurt. A quick farewell "thanks" and he was following after her, making sure not to open the door far enough for the man to notice any doctors in the hall.

Then again, the man seemed to barely notice even them (again, to no surprise), nor did he seem to be all that disturbed by his surroundings. At first Peter smiled, relieved, but that morphed into a frown he shared with Gwen, because there was nothing normal about that reaction at all. Waking up with a killer headache, burns and cuts all over your body and bandages stuck to the side of your head in an unfamiliar white-washed room with an IV in your arm should have been terrifying for anybody. Their stranger, however, seemed mostly curious, and a little bit drowsy in that blinking-really-slow sort of way.

"Hello." He turned, eyes furrowed slightly toward Gwen as she spoke, slowly approaching the bed with her winning smile placating any nerves he may have had. "I'm Gwen Stacy- me and Peter here found you in the park. Your head doing okay?"

For a long moment it looked as if he didn't understand her, but then the stranger nodded. "I… it hurts but I think I am all right. I was in a park? Um, Gwen?"

Nice accent- Peter marked down _British_ in his mental description of the man, along with _rich_ because that voice was too cultured not to be. So at least he'd be able to afford a better haircut than the job the hospital had done- it was a little uneven in the back, badly disproportionate on the left and right, and as curly as sheep's wool. He had the strange urge to ruffle it, but thankfully didn't act on it. Becoming a superhero hadn't done anything to ease the awkwardness of introductory conversation."The park, yeah. Central Park. You remember going there?" He wondered, and only then did the man seem to realize he was there as well despite the introduction Gwen had made for him.

"No, what's Central Park?" Stranger-danger wondered, and then Peter knew they were _really_ in trouble. Who came to New York City and didn't know about Central park?

"It's just a big park, lots of statues and trees," Gwen explained levelly, waving it off as if his lack of knowledge was perfectly common, and Peter mimicked her rather than give any potentially stressful clues about the stranger's so-far abnormality. "So you don't know why you were there, mister…? I'm sorry, I don't know your name. If you had a wallet or ID, it's gone now."

"Wallet?" The man blinked a few times, processing the rest of her question. "Ah, my name… no, I can't recall. A name- that's like 'Gwen', yes?"

"Yours would be closer to Peter, I think," Gwen offered, now looking at Peter with obvious concern. "Okay, so you don't know your name, that's fine. Do you know where you live?"

"I… No, I don't."

"Let's simplify things, what _do_ you remember?" Peter cut in, moving over to get a better look at no-name's eyes. They were still a little cloudy with pupils that were dilated and slow to respond, but what worried him the most was how passively the man reacted to being inspected. He was completely nonchalant, maybe curious in a very vague sort of way but entirely unconcerned about having a stranger come up and prod at his head.

"Remember?" He took a few seconds to decipher what this meant, then shook his head once more. "Nothing, I'm afraid. English. Once you say it I remember it, anyway. Or once I speak it…"

There was definitely a slur still coloring his voice, and the stranger seemed to recognize it. He frowned slightly, and looked at Peter for the first time with real emotion- he looked scared, and young, but he must have been at least twenty-five, if not thirty. "Don't worry, the doctors said there's no permanent damage. Though it looks like your memory's a lost cause. Um, pardon the accidental tasteless pun, I swear that wasn't on purpose."

"Nothing permanent. Do you know what happened, then?"

"We think somebody robbed you- your head was bleeding pretty bad, and it looked like somebody had tried to burn your hair," Gwen supplied helpfully.

"What- do you mean my hair burnt?" Nameless wondered, reaching up to paw at the ends as if expecting to find them on fire.

"Uh, yeah, but don't worry, burnt is past tense, that's hopefully all the fire you'll ever get on your head." Peter glanced helplessly toward the door, but no doctors came to their rescue just yet. Poor guy looked like he needed a lot more answers than either Peter or Gwen were going to be able to give him. "We need something to call you- what name do you want?"

"Do people usually pick their names?"

"Nope. Hey, you're special, how 'bout that?"

"I... don't know any names," he admitted, frowning wearily. He probably wanted to get back to sleep, but it wouldn't be safe and having something to call himself might make the waking world a little easier to handle.

"Well we both know plenty. Let's see… what about the hospital?" Gwen suggested, eyes turning away from a plastic cup with the name printed on it to smile encouragingly at Peter.

Not bad, actually- it would definitely stick until he remembered his actual name, but he couldn't resist some feigned misinterpretation at its expense all the same. "I don't know, "Permanente" seems a little mean, all things considered."

"Before he confuses you, let me explain that Peter is an illogical human being and nothing that comes out of his mouth should be trusted without extreme screening for the possibility of an attempted joke," She elaborated helpfully, and the stranger nodded without even a hint of a smile. "I meant Kaiser. It's not exactly conventional, but I think it suits him. What do you think?"

"It doesn't sound familiar. But very well, Kaiser is fine." The newly dubbed "Kaiser" nodded slowly, lazily, and his head stayed down a moment longer than was reassuring. "I don't mean to be rude- but can I go back to sleep, now?"

"Not yet, let the doctors get a quick look at you and they'll tell you when you can. They have to do some… annoying doctor stuff, but I don't think it'll take long. There questions will probably make more sense than ours did, anyway," Peter assured, though he had a feeling nothing would make much sense to Kaiser right now, and took a step toward the door.

Gwen took the same cue to exit, with a few warm smiles and a goodbye to serve for both her and Peter, then followed him out of the room just as the doctors crossed into it. She folded her arms, raised an eyebrow, and shook her head- all pre-emptive severity and Peter wasn't sure whether it would be safer to talk or let her get the first word. Damned woman's intuition. "Okay, you don't even know what I'm going to _do_ yet."

"Yes, I do. You're going to go home, spin that same story for Aunt May, then adopt an amnesiac who's probably twice your age."

"No way, Aunt May gets the truth," Peter defended because honestly, he probably wouldn't be able to fool her anyway. "Look, whatever attacked that guy wasn't some normal mugger. There's something after him, I can tell, and whatever it is isn't normal. If he goes off into some recovery program he'll be dead on the streets in two weeks, tops."

"Let me take him, then. Trouble loves you, you hardly need to invite any more of it. We have room since-" Gwen looked for a second like she might say more, but instead closed her eyes for a moment then raised them to look at Peter, pleading and worried. "For all you know, _he_ could be the danger. He might just be playing you, waiting for a chance."

"No, no way. I'm not putting you at risk, Gwen- I shouldn't even be _around_ you." Not to mention how awful he felt that he was, but Gwen wouldn't and couldn't be ignored, and it was better to be with her and have her in danger than to avoid her and have her in danger anyway. At least he could keep an eye on her this way. "Look, if he's at our house I can keep an eye on him and be ready if something comes after him. I don't want to put Aunt May in danger, but if she found out about Kaiser and heard that I _didn't_ offer him a place to stay, she'd probably flay me alive."

"And what happens if they don't let him leave with you?"

"It's that, or they keep him here. Protocol says they have to circulate a description of him, but they only have to keep him in the hospital if he's got nowhere else to go. I asked the receptionist, they have a social services program here. So long as Aunt May and I can prove that we're able to provide any medical care he needs, it's legal. I'm not asking for you to do anything, Gwen. I don't want you to get involved in this."

They held gazes for a moment, neither of them challenging the other but each trying their hardest to work out what exactly was going on, what they should do next. At last she nodded firmly, folded her arms, and shook her head. "Nope, you're not getting all the fun out of this. Besides, _I_ named him. I know plenty of people in the NYPD, let's go look up how to keep this legal."

* * *

Kaiser didn't like hospitals- though that felt less like a memory, and more like a discovery. Perhaps that was what he'd feel like whenever he remembered something, but he was distinctly certain that his dislike was a new development. Everything felt so detached, like everybody there was doing their best to assure everybody else that they _weren't_ there even though they were, and he didn't need that at all. He wanted _normalcy_ , he wanted somebody to turn to him and say, "You are here, in the hospital we named you after, and you don't know anything." It would be better than the fragile treatment he was getting now, like actually grounding him would make him break.

The doctors came to talk to him all the time, but they weren't telling him much. One asked if he had a family, and he'd hoped with each second that he would remember a father, a mother, an uncle or a sibling of some sort. But it wasn't until they asked if he was married that he even felt…. anything. He'd been left there, staring at his hand for twenty minutes until they had left uncertainly, letting him search for some discoloration in the skin, something to indicate he'd had a ring and lost it. He had no money, no ID, it was possible that he'd had an engagement or wedding ring stolen, right? But Kaiser took even that in stride and only shrugged, figuring that if he'd ever married somebody then they would be the first thing he remembered.

What first made him fearful, or nervous, however, was being told that if his memory didn't return or he had nowhere else to go the hospital may very well keep him there for months.

He found out, then, that he was very good with his words. His personal doctor- he didn't try to learn her name, he was far too scared of forgetting it- saw his distress and mentioned something, absently, of a family under screening that, with any luck, _would_ be allowed to keep him under their wing. If he wanted, of course. Kaiser had spoken without thinking, smiled and half-veiled his eyes where he thought might be appropriate, furrowed his brow in pitiful confusion at other points, and widened his eyes with what felt like hope when the doctor seemed to be considering anything. He was rewarded just two days later (seven days, six hours, twenty nine minutes since he'd woken up in the hospital- time wouldn't leave him alone, he was far too aware of the rest of the world around him while oblivious to the one inside him) with one of the only two faces he could have known, and one he recognized only through similarity.

Peter was bearing bruises he hadn't had during any of the other times he'd stopped by to visit Kaiser, but he was smiling much more brightly. The woman beside him, whose features were gratefully similar to Peter's and therefore not unnerving to be introduced to, was smiling as well, softer than the boy. Kaiser's head was a constant bother to him, and it had been revealed that he was sporting a cracked rip- but he was no longer confined to bed, and the two of them found him engrossed in a book, thick-backed and only one of many he had torn through in his time there.

"I told you about my Aunt May, right?" Peter wondered in way of greeting, stepping aside to wave both arms toward the woman as though he were making a presentation. "Well, ta-da! Here she is, the prime candidate for "world's most amazing older woman"."

"If you just called me old, Peter Parker, you can spend the next week scrubbing every floor in my house," May warned, turning a scolding gaze on him that didn't look harsh, no, but… stern, almost protective? Kaiser wondered if he had ever seen it before.

"Um, right. World's most awesome woman… period?"

"That's much better," She patted him affectionately on the arm, which had him grinning once again, and turned toward Kaiser. She looked a little startled by the bandages all along his face, or the splint on his wounded wrist, but she only frowned sympathetically and offered a hand to him. "Hello, there. I'm sorry it's been so long- I had quite the fight before the hospital would let us keep you."

Kaiser's hand hesitated in hers, and all thoughts for _A Tale of Two Cities_ lay forgotten beside the book, splayed sadly out on the desk he'd been left. "Pleasure to meet you, but… I am afraid that I don't understand. 'Keep me'?"

"Not in a literal sense. You're coming back to our place- you know, until you remember where you actually live," Peter beamed, holding out a wrinkled plastic bag with the name of what was probably a store plastered on the front and waved it when Kaiser only stared. He realized that he was meant to take it and did so with what he'd learned was a winning smile, nudging the bag open curiously. "They're mine. They run a little big, and you're a bit taller than me, so we figured they might fit."

"But- why?" Two people he didn't know, giving him clothes and letting him into their home- Kaiser looked them up and down, and registered that they were dressed no better than any other he had seen passing through the halls. Worse than many. Could they afford a guest, let alone a fully grown man with no legal papers or any sort? He'd been told that may be a problem. "I- the offer is greatly appreciated, but I would not wish to be a burden."

"Now, I won't hear any of _that_ ," May scolded, and Kaiser moved back an inch or so on instinctual surprise at her tone. "My husband told us once that if you could do a good thing for another person than you were morally bound to do it. As far as I can see it, he wouldn't be too happy with us if we left you here. Peter saw a man in need of help, and he wants to help him."

That didn't seem rational. Kaiser frowned, trying to puzzle out the logic in it, but supposed that was just another social tendency he'd forgotten- he'd already noticed people doing plenty of things that made no sense. "Then I thank you for your hospitality, but I am not sure I can accept it." A place to live was a much better thing to have than a room in a wretched white-walled building full of the ill and angry, but Kaiser knew better already than to accept the first, even second offer. If he wished to be living with these people, accepting their help, he wanted to make a good impression on the owner of the home. "Peter has already saved my life."

"Or maybe I mugged you, and this is all an elaborate cover-up," Peter suggested, which May didn't seem too happy about.

"Well if that's the case I'd like my wallet back."

"But the leather was embroidered and everything!"

"Peter," May scolded with something of a sigh. "We're helping you because Peter saved your life. Poor boy's been worried about you."

Whether her tone was joking or not, Kaiser couldn't help a bit of a laugh. Real hospitality… he would be a fool to turn them down. "Well, can't have Peter worrying. I don't know if he could take the stress."

"My poor heart would never survive the strain," Peter agreed, swooning dramatically and falling back onto the currently unoccupied hospital bed. "But really, we've got it all checked out. We have three or four bags stuffed with medicine and stuff that the hospital gave us for you, and we kind of converted the room next to me into something livable, instead of a horrible storage full of moldy books from our formerly flooded basement."

A room? They'd already made him out a room for him? They must have been so confident that he would come- but really, Kaiser had no choice but to accept. Not that he _wished_ for a different choice. Peter was one of few people he was willing to even look at since waking up. "I- thank you. Very much, I don't know how I can repay you." The books the hospital had lent him often mentioned repayment, closing up debts. He'd have to do something like that, wouldn't he?

He wouldn't know how to do that, and there would be quite a bit to repay. Perhaps he shouldn't go- his head was aching with pain, so he wouldn't be able to give any aid that involved thought. He couldn't even help with the room they'd made, with his ribs and wrist like they were. Likely he wouldn't be able to do more than he was doing now at the hospital- read for those six or seven hours during the day that he was actually able to rouse himself from sleep. He'd asked the doctors why he slept so much after realizing through his novels that most people spent their days awake for as long as possible. Apparently his body was using that to recover, but they looked nervous when they said it- even now he was drowsy. Clouded.

"Don't be ridiculous," May scolded, smiling down at him in a very… calming sort of way. He smiled back, still feeling just as tired but much more like he was _allowed_ to be feeling so. "We don't want anything from you. Now go on, change into those. Peter and I will be waiting outside."

She smiled at him again and turned from the room, seeming to understand that Peter would want to hesitate for a moment. "Look, Aunt May is going to be terrified if you don't come with us. I told her about you being attacked, she agrees with me that whoever went after you might try to come back- just, strength in numbers, yeah?" Peter gave him a rough thump on his back and grinned, waiting for Kaiser to do the same (sans thumping), before hurrying after his Aunt. He stopped in the doorway- or, rather, turned around so that he exited it while walking backwards- for one last comment. "It's freezing outside, so I'd put on the coat if I were you. And uh, yeah, that's it. So see you in a minute, well just be here."

He closed the door with a bit of a crash, and Kaiser grimaced slightly but couldn't help laughing at the muffled "Sorry!" that came from behind the door. The hospital was very strict about silence- he'd been moved to a room that was mostly secluded because of that, though he still didn't know what that meant. He never made much noise.

For a long moment Kaiser didn't move, but eventually he stood and changed out of the ill-fitting clothes he had been given by the hospital once it was clear he would be a long-term visitor. Peter's old clothing was too small, but it was much more comfortable, and the leather coat fit nicely around his body. He must have been cold without realizing it, because the weight was almost relaxing. He started toward the door with his hand extended nervously (he hadn't left the room except while half conscious when he changed his living space, what was he supposed to do once he had?) but stopped before he even touched it. His books- well, they weren't really his, but he had read them and didn't want to leave without them. He knew those stories better than his own.

But there would be more at Peter's house- the boy was smart, certainly the reading type. His backpack when he dropped by after school, which was apparently almost off on winter break, was always stuffed full of reading material. So Kaiser shucked off his longing and walked nervously through the door, clutching the bag of borrowed clothing in one hand.

May was speaking with a nurse, and Peter was playing with some small device in his hand- a phone, most likely, though Kaiser had yet to read a book that offered a physical description of the little machines. He shuffled his feet apprehensively, wondering what he was meant to do, but within moments everybody had turned to him anyway, and he could do nothing but freeze. He hated the nurses, the way they looked at him. It was more that he wasn't used to it yet, really, but he still didn't like it. They studied him, and he didn't feel like it was fair that they should try to learn things about him that he was still unaware of.

"Ah, so you're ready to go?" The nurse beamed at him and stepped forward with her hand extended. Kaiser took it with a bright smile, ignoring his unease. "If you ever feel unusually light-headed or ill come right back here. And never feel afraid to just drop by- we'll all be sorry to see you go."

Kaiser nodded, trying to meet her gaze steadily. He was fully aware that he'd become a sort of pet for the people who worked here, but seven days was not enough for him to consider them friends- not like he did Peter, who he liked not because he had helped him but because he was good company. Better than them by far. "I will. I- am I really going, just like that?"

"Just like that. Hospitals don't keep people longer than they need to be there," The nurse acted as if this were a bad thing, somehow, but Kaiser felt tension bleeding from his shoulders. He was leaving. "Remember, no exercise or lifting until we approve you, and avoid loud noises or bright lights when you can. And Kaiser; if you remember anything at all please come back here immediately."

Kaiser nodded, intending never to do anything of the sort, and waited patiently while May finished a few hushed conversations with the nurse, and a bit of tedious-looking paperwork. Peter finished whatever he was doing on his phone after a few minutes and came to stand beside him, but neither of them spoke. The younger boy hummed and tapped his foot in time with music that didn't exist, and Kaiser's lip twitched up in silent laughter. Peter certainly was a strange child, wasn't he? Gwen was as well, in a far subtler way, but she hadn't been around more than once since that first night. Kaiser didn't mind, he'd been surprised to see her again at all.

"Kaiser?" He flinched, turning nervously toward the voice, and found Peter watching him with an odd expression. "When you space out you uh… you really space out, don't you? Okay there?"

"Of course, I am well," Kaiser replied slowly, smiling once more. He could hardly keep on his feet, but there was nowhere to sleep here and no sense in doing it. "Tired."

"Once we're home you can sleep the night away. I say night, but it's like, four o' clock. Head wounds take that much out of you?" Peter reached up to rub a bit of bruising on his cheek, as if he thought he too would find himself exhausted constantly as a result. The boy no doubt knew more about injury and healing than did most of the staff in the hospital, so Kaiser only humored his teasing with a brightened smile.

May must have heard them, or perhaps her glance toward them let her see too much of Kaiser's weariness, for concern flashed over her eyes and she was done with the nurse two minutes later. She put her hand on his arm, and there was definitely something familiar about the touch- which was unusual. He did not think he had any aunts. "I should call a cab, I don't think you're fit for the subway just yet."

The subway. Kaiser had read about it, and New York's was the site for many favorite scenes in the best of his books. He wanted to see it, but he knew it would be exhausting. "I can manage it. It is quicker, no? With uh… traffic?"

"Oh, do you remember driving?" The nurse looked hopeful, but Kaiser was not sorry to clarify.

"No, I read about it. And have heard the staff complaining of it."

All his knowledge came from books, but what did they expect? He could learn from conversations, but he had had very few of those yet. May seemed unsurprised however, and only nodded understandingly, but her hand never dropped from his arm, and soon Peter's had clamped over his shoulder. He realized he was swaying on his feet and quickly steadied himself before the nurse could notice. Both hands were removed at their own pace, for which Kaiser was more than grateful, and after a long stretch of silence he bowed his head in a farewell to the employee. Time to leave.

They made it through the building just fine (though there was more paperwork at the desk, and a few questions Kaiser had to suffer through answering), but exiting was not an easy affair. It was a simple problem with a not so simple solution-Peter could not, for all his and Aunt May's efforts, get Kaiser to actually step onto the pavement.

He'd already noticed that the guy was… well… unusual, but he figured amnesia could do that to a person and let it be. But now he was growing kind of worried, and he could see that Aunt May was too, hear it in her voice as she tried to draw Kaiser's attention. He didn't seem to notice. His eyes were darting everywhere, much too quickly, like the whole thing was an overload of the senses and his mind was just going to pop from all of it- Peter knew that feeling all too well, but Kaiser didn't _have_ a super-powered spider bite to be moving his eyes so quickly, flickering over each individual face in the crowd as if he had time to memorize them before moving on. The streets weren't even that busy, not for New York. Peter vowed that it would be a long, long time before they brought Kaiser anywhere near Time Square.

It was probably to be expected that he would be a little overwhelmed, so Peter glanced at his Aunt and shook his head just slightly, knowing he wouldn't be able to stop her from worrying all the same. It was a few very boring and yet very worrisome minutes before Kaiser jerked back to reality as if he had merely been startled, and turned, blinking, toward Peter. He must have recognized his concern and deduced the reason for it, because a sort of frustrated embarrassment flashed through his eyes before he nodded apologetically and stepped forward at long last. He wasn't the steadiest on his feet and yet Peter was sure his help would do no real good, so he only stuck to Kaiser's side. Aunt May, however, had no such inhibitions.

She looped her arm in his, like she sometimes did when Peter was walking her home much too late at night, and steered him to the right when he turned in the wrong direction, allowing herself to appear the tag-along and not the leader. If Kaiser had perceived this the illusion would have been complete, but the man looked baffled by his sudden "captivity" and only consented to be pulled along without even a hint of his usual below-the-surface air of authority. So rather than helpful, he just looked kind of goofy."Prick your finger on the spinning wheel, Kai?"

Sleeping beauty grinned drowsily at the reference, and Peter wondered if he must have read it or if the classics had just survived his memory loss. Probably not, it didn't look like much had. "I've remembered something: concussions are exhausting."

"That doesn't count- discovery, not memory."

"Are we keeping score then?"

"Remembering your real name earns you a free experience boost."

Even without video gaming experience Kaiser chuckled at the concept of the joke and some of that twitchiness seemed to wash away, though he still looked dead on his feet. They'd expected that though, at least a few days of exhaustion before their new long-term guest would be up to something resembling ordinary life. Being hurt sucked, and even with superpowers Peter found himself wanting to just lie down and forget the world when some bad guy got a luck shot. Kaiser could sleep though, without any world-saving responsibilities to shirk. Sometimes Peter thought that must be nice, not having thousands or millions or more lives resting on your shoulders, but he always got over it pretty quickly. Nobody had forced him to take up the job (though the pay was nonexistent and let's face it, the health care plan was _awful_ ).

Kaiser didn't really enjoy the trip. The crowds were unnerving but not problematic, but people looked at him and depending on whether they saw Aunt May helping him or the bandages first either laughed or shied away from him. It wasn't as if injury could be contagious, and yet mothers seemed nervous about letting their children anywhere near him. Maybe they thought he was involved with somebody dangerous. That could have been interesting- had he been in a gang? It would explain a lot, and for a moment Kaiser spun himself a fake and somewhat violent history, but then realized that if he _had_ angered any gangs then somebody would likely arrive at May's door with a gun, so he wiped that idea away as they descended through a hole in the street, which was apparently nothing to be worried about.

The hole led to an even more condensed crowd, and an absolutely awful smell of sweat, trash, and a few other things he didn't want to think about. The place was an absolute mess, in need of cleaning and some proper ventilation, but he suppressed his disgust well enough. Peter and May seemed unbothered- were they used to it, or was this a common state of things? The hospital, he knew, was cleaner than most things he would see, but this was a bit of an… extreme difference. All the same he followed the two, listening to Peter's instructions and explanations, through crowds, stairs, spinning metal bars, and muggy tunnels with gum-lathered benches until their transportation arrived.

Which appeared to be nothing more than a giant metal tube. No, it was fine, he'd read about subways- but he didn't want to get on the thing, even when the doors slid open in invitation. The amount of people inside that wretched machine… "How- how long are we in there?"

"Not long. Don't worry, next station's huge, most of these people will clear on out," Peter assured, thankfully making no physical attempt to encourage him forward. "Should we wait for the next one?"

No, Kaiser would _not_ be treated like a fragile thing, some invalid. He could deal with this, some ride on a train. He shook his head, and met May's eye, unsurprised to see her mouth open- no protest waiting, but an assurance that he could wait if he wanted to. All the same his gaze silenced it, and with a smile that was far too knowing for somebody like her she pulled her arm away, leaving Kaiser feeling slightly alone as he stepped onto the subway beside them, moments before the door slammed shut.

"Bet you wish you'd gotten amnesia out in New Hampshire or something, huh?" Peter prodded, reaching out with almost unnatural speed to catch Kaiser by the upper arm when the subway jerked forward, nearly knocking him off his feet. "Hey, anyone got a seat for the concussion patient?"

" _Peter."_

 _"Kaiser._ Wow, okay, your name is a lot more intimidating than mine, I think I'm actually going to shut up now."

Despite his embarrassment, Kaiser couldn't help a bit of a laugh. Luckily nobody seemed to heed Peter's comment, aside from one young boy who made the mistake of snorting and rolling his eyes from where he sat. A mistake only because May noticed him, and proceeded to give one of the most misleadingly-pleasant lectures Kaiser could ever imagine, let alone actually suffer through. The poor boy practically fled his seat.

He would have laughed, except she turned on him moments after and pointed toward the abandoned seat that nobody yet seemed brave enough to fill. "Arguing will get you nowhere," Peter warned, and Kaiser only nodded mutely. He sat down, slowly, fighting back an almost vicious sort of embarrassment. He needed their help, not their _coddling._

Fuming in annoyance-despite the quiet thanks he offered both the boy and May- proved futile as well, apparently, because not even a minute into his somewhat-sulking he opened his eyes from a brief pause to find the subway car almost empty, the doors open and floor stilled. The world different, as it always seemed to be after sleep had claimed him. It was a familiar sensation by now, so he only blinked off the remaining threads of drowsiness and let Peter aid him to his feet without conscious protest. He was glad to see the boy hurrying afterward to offer a hand to his Aunt, who had thankfully found a seat at some point.

Peter doubted that Kaiser remembered even a second of what happened from that point onward. They got him home easily enough, asking a few routine questions on the way, and Aunt May even talked him into dressing properly for bed. But aside from relaxing slightly inside the home, he gave no sign to show that he was fully aware of where he was- except maybe when he hit the bed, because he was asleep within seconds of lying down.

"Is this… normal?" Aunt May wondered, standing beside him outside the doorway once she had shut it closed, determined to give the man some privacy.

"So long as he doesn't start sleeping for longer intervals at a time, I think we're good," Peter promised. That many injuries were bound to take a lot out of a guy. "He's just tired, it'll wear off in a few days."

She seemed skeptical but satisfied for the moment. "Well, so long as he's there for dinner. You make sure he's not late, Peter Parker, or neither of you is getting anything," She brandished an imaginary cooking utensil in his direction, a smile on her face all the while, and left him in the hallway to go get something cooked up.

Peter's work in the meantime was simple, but not short. He got the medicine set up in the cabinet pretty easily- all of it marked for "John Doe" as per hospital policy, despite the name everyone had willingly applied to Kaiser- but spent a long while after calling up favors and video-chat counseling with Gwen, planning out something of a life for their not-so-little "adoptee".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kaiser Permanente is the hospital everyone goes to here, not sure about elsewhere. I hope there's one in New York City, I picked the name awhile back. If not... there is one now, in context of this story. Hurray. (Also yes, I do know what Kaiser means. It was on purpose.)
> 
> If you're looking for info on new updates, I made a twitter just for babbling about fanfic progress. It's @KylieCUnderwood if anyone's interested.:)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There was a lot of noise from a little further off, where he could see machines taller than some of the shattered buildings at work, and people were darting all about, most of them digging through rubble or bringing supplies to those who were. He saw uniforms and T-shirts, adults and children, everyone able-bodied of course, and he began to wonder what he was supposed to do here. What he even could do here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this took me ridiculous amounts of time. I apologize profusely to all of you- I have more time to write during the school year than summer, actually, so updates won't be so delayed this long again! Hopefully this chapter was worth the wait, even though it's mostly foreshadowing.

It was only three days before Kaiser's [sleep patterns](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8313082/3/) started to clear up, and during those days Peter almost never got a chance to speak with him. His grades, thankfully, never really suffered for all the time spent fighting villains out on the streets, but it was getting to the point where he spent every waking moment either battling or writing essays. Other than that, he was busy trying to work out a safety-net of sorts for Kaiser- and here he was infinitely grateful to Gwen, because she was not only much better at working things like that out but had more time to do it.

Which also sucked because, to the surprise of apparently nobody who met him except for Peter, everything female seemed to love being around Kaiser. Aunt May was happier when he was helping her in the [kitchen](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8313082/3/), Gwen was more open than ever when he was around, and grouchy neighbors with violent dogs actually invited them over for tea. ( _[Tea](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8313082/3/)._ Peter hadn't drunken tea in ten years, but apparently Kaiser's presence in a house made tea feel like a practical necessity. It was probably the British accent.)As for Kaiser himself, he didn't even notice. He caught odd looks on the street, or enticed strange smiles out of woman in the course of what he had believed to be normal conversation, but he was rarely in public enough to be concerned by this.

There really was little difference in staying at May's home as opposed to the hospital. The food, company, and spacing were welcoming, better by all accounts- but still Kaiser did little in his first three days but sleep. And read. The material available to him here was far more interesting than the hospital's storybooks, and he found himself enticed to stay awake in his desire to know more about what might be found between the covers.

There were thousands of ways to describe length, time, or weight, and thousands of ways those things could be used to teach why a pendulum swung or a rocket fired. The story of earth's creation and substance was readily available, as were detailed explanations about the politics and bloodshed that had brought the human race to where it was now. He knew nothing about how to drive a car or buy groceries, and yet he could recite his race's history to the letter. It was an odd sort of comfort, but the more Kaiser read and learned the more he felt he was making up for lost memory, and so he read, and read, and read.

And after three days, it stopped being the worst of all chores to keep himself awake long enough to read on. He started to insist on helping May wherever he could, in the kitchen, cleaning, repairs, whatever needed to be done. She was grateful but cautious, but he only found her concern endearing as he continued his work. He really should have known better, but it wasn't until after a week of work when he made the mistake of trying to carry some boxes from the basement upstairs for her that he realized her fears had a base in logic.

He was now lying on the couch, a cold bag of ice wrapped in too-soft fabric pressed over his forehead that helped in a way he was certain it medically shouldn't have, absorbed in a lengthy text about the uses for numbers, when Peter found him.

Kaiser hoped the boy was by now used to finding a near-stranger on his couch or at his table. He never showed any outward annoyance or confusion for it, at least, but even with all his ignorance he was aware of how abnormal the situation was and couldn't begrudge Peter any discomfort he might have for it. If he was annoyed Peter didn't show it, and the grin that lit his face as he spotted Kaiser was far from mocking. "You know, with the way Aunt May sounded on the phone I expected at least three gaping wounds. You disappoint."

"I'll be sure to fall down the stairs next time, maybe even break something for added suspense," He tried sitting up, but his head felt too hot for the attempt so he stayed as he was, watching Peter dump his backpack in the front hall.

"Make sure not to get too much blood on the steps, it's hell to clean out of the carpet." There was a chair across the coffee table, but Peter thumped, cross-legged, to the ground beside the couch rather than vacating it, tilting his head back to get a look up at Kaiser. "So, what happened? Aunt May just said you passed out."

"She was preserving my dignity- I swooned, it was minimally less dramatic and far less masculine. She brought me water and I managed to get here without help," Kaiser explained, waving his hand in a lethargic arc to encompass the living room. "I strained myself, that's all."

"Ya know, doctors orders specifically said something about _not_ lifting anything over thirty pounds for at least three months."

"Ah, there's my problem. Days, months, can't be bothered."

Before, they might both have been concerned by such a comment, but Kaiser was growing steadily more familiar with the world as others knew it. Facts of life, time, and physical reality were no longer a problem. "I'm gonna get you a calendar one of these days. So, listen, Gwen and I wer- is that my Calculus book?"

Kaiser glanced down at the cover of his current text and yes, the word was displayed proudly on the front, alerting the better informed world to its contents. "It was on the coffee table, and I couldn't get up to find anything else. I am very sorry, should I not have touched it?"

Now that he considered it, reading other people's books without permission could logically be considered very rude. "Nah, go ahead. Have you been reading a lot of my text books?"

The honest answer was yes, and there was no point in lying. Thinking about it now, Kaiser recalled at least five texts that he'd placed improperly after reading, and it was obvious in the aftermath that he had been going through Peter's schooling material and leaving it in the wrong spot once he had finished. He just assumed, when he was done reading, to place the book on the shelf. "Yes. I hope I did not hamper your work in any way." Barely conscious, and he was already causing them trouble.

But Peter seemed genuinely unbothered, though somewhat unsettled. "I found them when I needed them. Did you read the whole thing? All of 'em?" Almost reluctantly, Kaiser nodded. "And you understood everything?"

"Of course."

"Whoa." Clearly that was abnormal. Kaiser closed the book, feeling as if he'd done something wrong, and searched Peter's face for some sign of disapproval. There was none, yet, but that could change. What sort of man could absorb the entirety of a college-level textbook in mere hours and not even know his own name? "You know, I was going to tell you I'd gotten you a job at a café but I'm thinking I should just call up Oscorp."

Oscorp? "You got me- Peter, I don't even have an _I.D._ " Working would be good, as soon as he was able, but… working meant coworkers and customers. It meant understanding people, and it meant legal complications he could not, in any legitimate way, overcome. He tried to sit up, failed once more, and Peter's hand lashed out to steady him before he had even fallen back a half inch. He was certainly quick. "Look at me, I can barely move."

"I didn't mean right this minute. Gwen's got a family friend, an ex-cop, who runs this coffee shop down the street. She said she'd take you on, papers or none, until we can sort everything out. You can start when you're ready- we thought about college or something, but that's too expensive and we want you to see if hanging out with people jumps your memory, not how many six packs you can chug in a day, so the job seemed better."

Peter looked hopeful, in his own way. It took Kaiser a long moment to realize he was hoping for approval, and wondered how he might show it. A smile was hesitant, but the message came across enough for the boy to grin, and slap him on the shoulder as he stood. Either that was a bizarre sign of affection, or people were far more abusive than the doctors had let him think. "Okay, okay, not like I'm rushing you to start. If you think you're not up to it, we'll scratch the idea. For now, try to avoid any heavy lifting, I want you up for a field trip tomorrow."

"A…?" They weren't going to a literal field, Kaiser could figure that much out considering their location and the general tone of Peter's conversations, but beyond that he couldn't much decipher the term. "I'm sorry, I do not-"

"Right, duh. Just means a trip that schools go on."

"We are not in school."

"You're reading my textbooks aren't you? Doesn't matter- sleep up, because we're going out tomorrow." Peter gave Kaiser a quick, condescending pat on the head and hopped to his feet. "So long as I finish my homework anyway. Hey, want to write me an essay on Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy?"

Teddy Roosevelt- Kaiser recalled the name with ease and, yes, likely could have written Peter's essay for him. The request he knew was a joke, but even so he was on the verge of assenting when an odd shiver went down his spine and he clamped his mouth shut. Not two seconds later, Aunt May's voice was preceding her in the doorway. "Peter Parker, if I see you so much as offer that man a pencil you will live to regret it."

By now Kaiser could tell that May's anger was rarely (if ever) genuine, and he smiled along with Peter at the warning. He would have loved to stand and greet her properly-she had, after all, been worrying about him without pause for the last half hour- but his muscles dragged through the air like syrup, and even a wave was draining. Really, what had he been thinking, lifting those damned boxes? "I can write in pen, no worries."

"Can you? Write, I mean." A legitimate question, actually, and one Kaiser would not have known the answer too if May hadn't tested it earlier. He nodded, and Peter decided to accept that at face value. "Sorry, probably a… bad question."

"Not at all. I have no idea what I do or don't know until someone asks me," Kaiser admitted, as matter-of-factly as such a sentence could be said. Neither of them seemed to pity him for it, for which he was always grateful. He did not think he would be very pleased if he'd ended in the hands of a family that treated him like an invalid for his amnesia.

Which, in some infuriating ways, he was.

May needed Peter's help with those boxes that Kaiser had failed to move, so after a brief moment the two of them took their leave. Now that his attention had been drawn from it he had no desire to return to the Calculus book, though there was little else he _could_ do. He'd been told the device across from him was a television, a machine he knew of from books but no more, and yet he was loathe to pick up the remote control that would seemingly flip it on. Half of what he saw would be fiction, half fact- and unlike with the genre label on a book, he would have difficulty at times deciphering one from the other. So none of that.

How was he meant to _work_ like this? A job would be good. Spending money of his own- and a way to repay them before he ended up in any true debt- and a chance to interact, to study strangers and coworkers for some hint of a life he may have known before. But he would be working on charity, because Gwen and Peter had gone out of their way to aid _him_. To earn him a job he likely wasn't even qualified for, whenever he wanted it, all because… because he had no other way of being any help, now did he?

 _Useless._ Kaiser winced, one lethargic hand coming to press against his forehead, palm fighting off a sudden throb of pain from somewhere in the center of his brain. Not uncommon lately. (Or ever, perhaps- he had no way of knowing what had been common before.) No, not useless, only… wounded. It had been but a few days, he would recover eventually.

Another pain, not enough to startle Kaiser into successfully sitting up but enough for him to bury his head in his hands, teeth grinding together. He tried to reach for the water May had brought him earlier, when he originally collapsed, but withdrew his hand. Better not to risk dropping the glass- he knew these aches by now, they would only get worse before they passed.

The throbbing built to a soft humming, like the static of May's broken radio turned low, and Kaiser's hands went from his face to his ears, which did nothing but make him feel as though the sound were trapped inside, bouncing around in the confines of his brain. His teeth were pressed too hard together-he wondered if they could crack from this- and his eyes scrunched up tight. The worse it felt, the quicker it was over, so when the pain flared and buzzed it came as a relief more than anything.

And, as abruptly as a cut connection, it stopped. Kaiser blinked, grimaced, and with difficulty procured the water and swallowed the entirety in gulps that chased one behind the other without pause. At some point, he'd ended up wrenching his legs towards his chest, halfway to making himself into some sort of ball. Lip curled in distaste, he placed the glass unbroken on the ground and rolled onto his back, kicking his feet out to a more dignified position.

The headaches had begun during his second day at the hospital, at first such a shock and pain that he probably would have screamed himself hoarse if not for the nurse's immediate sedation. It was normal, they assured him, to feel pain and normal for it to linger and hound him down past the hospital steps. And because it was normal, Kaiser welcomed each 'incident'-as the nurses had called them- with near open arms. But that itself was masochistic, not normal, and he didn't like the pain so much as he liked knowing that he was meant to be feeling it. At least his body was working correctly, even if his mind wouldn't act as it should.

Whatever the time was, if Kaiser was going to be leaving the house tomorrow then he needed to sleep off that latest wave of headache. He shut his eyes, accustomed to being drawn into sleep after mere minutes of this, but almost immediately bolted upright- far, far too quickly. His head was swimming within moments, his body flushing with heat in protest, but he was too intent on not crying out to care much. The ache was back, as bad as it had ever been, and he felt himself shaking, gasping without any logical reason.

Something in his head went off like static, and Kaiser swore, quietly, grateful that Peter and May were downstairs lest they hear him. There were thoughts running through his mind that didn't feel like his own- distorted, drawn out, wobbled and rising in inflection with each throb of pain. Stop, stop, go away, it wasn't _meant_ to last this long. He groaned, felt the thump of his head against the pillow and realized he'd fallen back, failing to hold himself upright. Fine. His eyes squeezed shut, as tightly as possible, but the throbbing, like pounding of drums in some foreign speech, did not cease.

If May or Peter came upstairs… Kaiser forced his eyes open and reached blindly for the book, vision nearly black from the ache, and only managed to hit his hand against the edge of the table. Ow. The other hand pressed to his forehead, trying in vain to fight back the headache, he continued to grope along the surface of the table, searching for the book. If he could pretend to be reading, at least, they wouldn't be worried if they came in and saw him.

His hand brushed something paper, but it was loose-leaf, a piece of Peter's homework perhaps. Kaiser cursed quietly in frustration, but that quickly turned into a gasp of pain, and he clutched the paper as his hand tensed, nearly crumbling it. Wonderful. He'd fix that later- his arm was heavy, and he had to find the book, even if he could see no more than blurred shapes quickly growing black. A remote control, a flower pot- his hand finally brushed the familiar cover of the textbook, but before he could do more than fumble for a grip on it the pain vanished for half a moment, then flared up with the sudden force to wipe his vision clear.

It could have been an hour later, or only five minutes, or half the day- all Kaiser knew when he managed to truly open his eyes, head buzzing with a muggy sort of exhaustion rather than that awful pain, was that he'd blacked out. Not fallen asleep, not grown dizzy and staggered, actually _fainted_ from a mere headache. He groaned, and ran both hands through his hair in frustration, taking a long moment to register that his limbs no longer felt too heavy to do that. Out for more than a few minutes then. If that happened tomorrow, while they were out…

Ah, well, it would make for a funny story at least. Without much consolation to offer himself other than that, Kaiser rolled onto his side, facing the ancient fabric of the sofa, and shut his eyes, determined to get a good amount of _actual_ sleep. Sad that he literally could not remember being physically well- he just wanted to feel _better_ already, so he might actually know what it was like to be healthy.

* * *

 

New York city, apparently, could be considered a large melting pot of not only people, but smaller sub-cities as Kaiser had taken to calling them, unsure how else to refer to the complete diversity from neighborhood to neighborhood. Queens, the Bronx, Manhattan, Chinatown, Time Square, Little Italy, the Village…- each section was like its own little culture, and Kaiser was content to keep to as few of them as possible. So when Gwen arrived the next day and Peter promptly announced that their "field trip" would involve a subway trip to Manhattan during rush hour, he was less than excited. They assured him the crowds would be minimal, but from his experience with the city... Well, he was worried to say the least.

But after they had gotten onto the road that went only to the island, there was almost nobody about. No pedestrians, no cars, no passengers huddled together on rank leather seats. There was little other than a scattered handful of men and woman with grim expressions and durable work clothing. Kaiser felt oddly underdressed, though he didn't know what for, in nothing but the jeans and leather jacket Peter had procured for him.

At least it meant he could sit down without either of them embarrassing him yet again- as they had almost every time they entered a new subway train for any reason, even if they were just out of the house for perhaps half an hour. Gwen, surprisingly, was less overbearing than Peter, who took great delight in declaring that Kaiser was probably going to collapse if he didn't sit, and asking in the most annoying way he could if anybody would please help their poor crippled Brit.

"What happened, exactly, in this place we're going to?" Kaiser couldn't tear his eyes away from the empty seats- something about it looked… unnatural. Neither Gwen nor Peter appeared at all surprised, however, so they were clearly expecting this obscure lack of a crowd, so he assumed they must have known the reason for it.

Precisely why he spoke quietly, lest those few others on the subway hear his question. It was for his own convenience more than avoiding their questions- he'd noticed that people had the oddest tendency to be offended by his ignorance, as if he had lost his memory or never learned simply to make a mockery of the knowledge they coveted, even though his questions should have made it clear that he was doing his best to remedy that. "Long story or short story?" Peter had once done his best to explain. Amnesia meant he was an oddity, something they did not understand, and people feared things like that.

Kaiser simply could not fathom that. He didn't understand _anything_ , and maybe it was all a little intimidating, frightening even. But he tried to immerse himself in those things he was ignorantly wary of, not shun them, and why not? He had no desire to leave in fear. "Long."

"Well, we don't actually know that version. These creatures flew in and attacked Manhattan not that long ago- the place is still in shambles, and we only know the guys who stopped the attack, not who started it or what they wanted. A few of them are usually there on most days, helping fix things up." Peter gestured out the window, where Kaiser caught the glimpse of one of few familiar views- the Manhattan skyline, a common feature from many of his books that he'd seen captured in thousands of photos online (that Peter, hearing him mention the buildings in passing, had insisted he view). But something was… wrong, and Kaiser realized with a sinking heart that there were whole buildings missing from the iconic sight, half-crumbled gaps amongst the glory.

"And we are allowed there?" Some unknown force attacked the city, destroyed it… Kaiser knew enough about government to imagine it would have been closed off.

"The relief effort takes all the help it can get." Gwen, like all New-Yorkers that Kaiser had yet seen, had the inborn ability to walk without the slightest unsteadiness from one end of a subway car to the other while it was not only in motion, but picking up rapidly from a brief stop to let on just one more passenger. She came and sat beside Kaiser, leaving Peter to pout across from them, and gestured out the window. One building stood high above the others, a survivor amongst the wreckage, further into the center of the city but still perfectly visible. At the top, a large metal 'A' declared the logo of some unknown entity, and Kaiser could only look to her for an explanation. "The Avengers, a bunch of superheroes. They run it, but more about that later. The point is, Peter and I realized you're wasting a perfectly good opportunity with your amnesia."

"I'm- Pardon?"

"Ask almost anybody you see- they'll tell you that humankind, as a whole, is glaringly flawed." Peter now, relenting and moving to join them when he saw Gwen was not going to move back. "It's easier for people to remember all the bad things that happened than the good."

"But you don't really know much of the bad, do you? So we want you to see something nice, just in case the world drives you crazy later on. Something pleasant to think back to."

Humanity, flawed? Kaiser had noticed flaws in everything he'd seen so far, but over all… he had been saved by two strangers, given a home while he needed it, clothes, books, food, and two overbearing friends who were already trying to get him on his own two feet again in terms of understanding and funds. He knew not everybody would have done the same, and he was lucky to be found by Peter and Gwen, but neither of them seemed abnormal.

There were worse things to be than human, really.

* * *

 

Kaiser did not know what he expected when they rose at last from the subway, but what he found certainly wasn't it. They were stopped the moment they stepped off the train and searched, though Kaiser less thoroughly than either of his companions, the bandage on his head marking him as no serious threat. They were led as a group out of one clearly marked entrance, the others they passed seemingly stuffed with rubble, and never let out of sight until they were well and truly above ground. It was odd- he'd read of characters being searched on their ways into buildings, usually airports or the like in the novels, but never upon _leaving_ them.

"It is kind of ridiculous though. The place is enough of a wreck already, and there's broken glass and metal all over the place. Hurting somebody wouldn't be too hard," Peter muttered, just out of earshot of one of the guards who had waited to watch them on their way. "And there's your first experience with human paranoia, Kaiser- remember it well."

"I'm going to pretend this time that that turn of phrase was on accident- don't count on being so lucky next time."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Stop it."

"Right, sorry, force of habit, I keep forgetting."

"Gwen, if I assault him and use amnesia to claim ignorance of the law you'll back me up, won't you?"

"Of course." Gwen was completely blank, but when Peter turned to her with a wounded stare she laughed minutely- not a giggle, the word reeked of idiocy she did not have, but something like it. "Seriously you two, no more bickering. This isn't the place for it."

Kaiser thought that was an odd thing to say in any part of New York, really, where almost all of the people he had come by did nothing _but_ bicker. Here though, he supposed he could see the point. Now that he was looking around, instead of responding to Peter's taunts, he saw that the city really was in shambles. There was a lot of noise from a little further off, where he could see machines taller than some of the shattered buildings at work, and people were darting all about, most of them digging through rubble or bringing supplies to those who were. He saw uniforms and T-shirts, adults and children, everyone able-bodied of course, and he began to wonder what he was supposed to do here. What he even _could_ do here.

He was absorbed by the sight, now that he bothered to take it in. People lifting loads that seemed impossible for their sizes, calling for help when they needed it and immediately someone was _there_ , no questions asked, giving them whatever they could. People called out gratefully at the sight of newcomers, waving and smiling grimly through faces choked in dust and plaster, while men and dogs darted about, pointing with their snouts at buildings or piles and barking themselves hoarse. Peter immediately rushed over to one such canine, assuring them he would be back quickly before vanishing down the street after the tail of a huge, black and brown animal.

"Search dogs," Gwen explained, catching his confusion. "They're looking for people who got caught when the buildings collapsed- or pets too. We've found more cats then you would believe, though they always need some help. That's what I do, patch up survivors. The medical tent can always use another hand."

"Can I go there?" He'd read medical texts- not enough to really know how to work of course, but Kaiser was itching to test the knowledge, and if he could do it on somebody who really needed help… well, all the better. The quicker he paid the world back for the kindness he had been done, the better.

"Peter says you're smart enough, so yes. Stick with me, or they won't let you in," she warned, and Kaiser could only register that a teenager had more authority than most adults he had met before she was leading him off yet again.

May's fussy tendencies were not something he had ever expected to be thankful for-grateful, yes, but he would have preferred to avoid them- but after she had forced him to sleep, eat, and drink his way to health the day before Kaiser managed to maneuver his way through the rubble without even losing his breath. He did need help regaining his balance more than once, but he would accept his accomplishments in small doses.

They reached a somewhat in-tact hotel before long, the lobby of which had been converted into a scene far too reminiscent of days Kaiser preferred to ignore, bustling with volunteers and the stench of blood. The man Gwen directed him to was two inches shorter and about thirty pounds heavier than Kaiser, who snapped like a police sergeant and had breath tainted with pork. For the next few hours Kaiser was kept busy delivering supplies from doctor to doctor, wrapping wounds and sprains (on animals and humans alike), checking for concussions (he was sure that Peter was laughing at him, somehow) and, which he found he enjoyed best of all, talking to shell-shocked children, calming them down and convincing them to let the doctors take a look.

He loved… something about it. The way these people asked him for help, the way they looked at him with the gratitude he had worn since Peter saved his life, the way they said they would remember him and the way they _needed_ him. He knew that wasn't what he's supposed to find so exhilarating, but when Gwen arrived to check on him, she saw only that he was enjoying himself, and Kaiser supposed that was what mattered. He was helping people, and he liked doing it.

"You're not getting tired, are you? Because if you're going to faint, I'd rather you do it here than on the subway," she wondered immediately upon approach, laughing slightly as she said it.

Kaiser returned her smile, setting aside a just-shut bottle of iodine so he could stand and speak to her unencumbered. "Thank you, but no. I am fine. Has Peter come back yet?"

"He said he got caught up across the city, he'll meet us when it's time to head back home." Gwen was in constant contact with Peter, and vice versa. It was a little unsettling, really, because Kaiser could never quite manage to catch them with their phones out. "But I'm asking because everyone's getting worried. You're looking pretty pale."

Was he? Kaiser frowned, and turned around in search of a mirror. He felt fine, really, but then again he usually did until the moment his legs would no longer carry him, but it wasn't as if he'd done anything particularly strenuous today. He shook his head, intending to assure Gwen that it was coincidence only, when the volume from outside reached a new high, a brief roar of excitement load enough to drown out the medical din of their room. He flinched at the uproar, short as it had been, and turned quickly towards the windows, seeing nothing but the crowds, a few men and woman looking upward and smiling.

"Who is it this time?" One of the other nurses called, sounding somewhere between exasperated and amused.

Someone nearer the window peaked his head out the door, returning a few moments later to scoff and grin. "That spider kid's helping Iron Man fix some broken paneling. Your pretty boy isn't here."

The nurse flushed, and the two broke into a brief argument that, judging by the general expression of acceptance, was a common thing. Kaiser tried to focus on what they were saying, but the man's last words and his own curiosity were calling for attention as well, and the multi-tracked train of thought caused a light throb of protest in his temple after a moment or so. "There's no way I can phrase this eloquently. What just happened?"

"Come on, take a look." Gwen offered her hand, but Kaiser shook his head and insisted on walking alone, a little annoyed that he apparently looked bad enough that she felt the need to offer even though he _felt_ perfectly fine. He informed the doctor he was helping that he was stepping out for a moment, then followed her onto the street, tilting his head upward along with the crowd.

Most people had gone back to work, but a few were dawdling enough for him to follow their gazes up to the top of a decaying building, huge beams and panels of metal hanging off it like flaked skin. It was a little eerie, but Kaiser was paying far more attention to the two bright red shapes at the top of the building, one flying and one seemingly stuck to the walls.

Neither thing should be possible. _How_ was it possible? The one hanging on the building had his hands out, and even from this distance Kaiser could see thick threads connected seemingly to his wrists down to a large metal pole, currently being welded to the building by… a red and gold robot. Blue shot from its hands and feet, keeping it in the air, but… it wasn't _logical._ Kaiser ran through everything he had learned on physics and chemistry and other sciences Peter kept books on, but none of it gave much justification to keeping a thing like that so steadily in the air.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to work it out, and nearly swore in surprise when the robot stopped to give the boy on the wall a thumb's up, flipping back a mask to reveal a human within. A flying _suit._ It… apparently it was possible, and he could see it being _plausible_ , really, but it still seemed strange that such a thing could exist. "That's a person?"

Gwen looked at him in surprise, but he could not imagine why (ignorant, of course, to the unusual strength of his own eyesight and how nobody else on the ground could see but the blurriest outline of the two red figures). "That's Tony Stark, sometimes known as Iron Man. You'll hear a lot about him if you turn on the news, and that's Spiderman- his identity is kept secret, but he likes to drop by to help out the older heroes." There was something fond in her teasing that was far too fond to be mere admiration for an unnaturally powered boy doing his part to help.

Superheroes. Well, he hadn't expected to see anything like that, not when the realistic books he read all denied fantasy or merely considered it wistfully. "And they're the ones who saved the city from this attack?"

"Iron Man was the most well-known of six. Spiderman showed up before that, but he was stuck in Queens and it was impossible to get here while everything was going on."

Gwen was the easiest to talk to about simple things like this, facts of everyday life for most. Even Peter had a hint of the usual tendency to take his time to make things sound like conversation- she just gave a textbook response. "Who were the others?" The man, Stark, must have finished the welding. He flew away, leaving Spiderman to keep it in place while he checked each side, made sure it was properly stuck on, before both moved on to the next dangerously loose piece of metal. Better to repair it than destroy it, though Kaiser imagined it would be much easier simply to throw it aside. The building was a mess already, why bother?

"Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Widow. The other two never show up, so I don't know about them." Even from here, Kaiser could see that the two of them were making little progress on the building. "You'll talk to one of them eventually, they come by the medical room all the time. And you're smart enough to actually be interesting."

"With a name like 'Captain America' it is a little difficult to imagine intelligence."

"He's from the nineteen forties, so we give him a break there."

"Is that possible?" Kaiser had a momentary image of a seventy year-old man battling monstrous forces in the middle of Manhattan. It was not pretty.

Gwen smiled and quickly launched into an explanation as they returned to the medical lab, describing a young boy with severe physical frailty and a time period he knew better, thanks to the presence of an American history book or two, than he did this one. Kaiser attempted to listen with rapt attention, but he couldn't help a final glance for the airborne man, who had turned to give a quick wave to the crowd below. He hesitated for a moment, long enough for Stark to look toward their building, and he could have sworn that the man stopped, staring down at him through the mask before turning around to work once more, and Kaiser walked away still able to tell himself that it meant nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rest assured, Tony will be here in the next chapter, which will mostly be about Loki's cafe-ing adventures.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So a Supehero, a Billionaire, and the God of Mischief Walk into a Bar...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bet you all thought I'd died or something, huh?
> 
> Nope! I just had a novel to write and college to apply for, but now I am free! Mostly. Anyway, I apologize for the delay and I hope this delay makes up for it. Warning that there will be some OCs in this chapter (because Loki's coworkers couldn't easily be canon characters), but they're not going to be major. Also, I apologize for the not-so-implied /OC, but that's again a one-time thing just to show that even without his memory Loki is, in almost all aspects, still Loki.

Setting Kaiser up with the café was Peter's self-proclaimed work of genius.

The owner, an ex-cop, would go through any layer of favors for Gwen's sake, and she had been too curious about Kaiser to even act grumpy about agreeing. It wasn't a place Peter went to all that often before he and Gwen started dating, but he had been sort of forcefully acquainted with it, and didn't feel there was any risk of culture shock, not after how well their amnesiac had dealt with the cleanup group. It was a tiny place, about the size of a classroom, with a cozy little loft upstairs where people liked to drink their coffee and read. (Said loft was also currently attached to a room that had once housed the owner, Linette, herself, but now contained only boxes full of linoleum wrap and cardboard cup holders that even Peter was more than a little reluctant to actually go into, lest he be buried under reasonably- priced kitchenware.)

She had been complaining about the need for a waiter for years. A bad leg had forced her to quite the force and trumping up and down the stairs wasn't an easy option. But all of her employees were relatives of former coworkers or long-time customers, Linette didn't trust anybody enough to let them deal with her clients. Peter had already regretfully refused the job twice, and Gwen probably many a time more than that.

Okay, so an amnesiac British guy with a scar as big as Peter's hand wasn't exactly trustworthy, but they'd vouched for him and prodded until Linette had consented for an interview. Not that poor Kaiser really knew what an interview _was_ , but he was currently kicking the process' ass with only natural effort, as Peter had expected. Like he'd said, genius.

Gwen wasn't any less optimistic, though she only showed it by smiling over her cup as they watched Kaiser talk their hard-faced friend into a blinking state of awe. "I don't know how he does it, she loves him. I thought she was going to shoot him when he walked in the door, now she looks read to fall at his feet."

"Yeah, he has that effect on girls." Peter had a plastic bottle of milk in hand (plain, he'd lost the taste for chocolate),and the barista was giving him dirty looks from behind her counter. "I think his sweat gives off some weird hormone or something, he can't just be _that_ good."

"Maybe it's the accent. Clearly it's something strange, because he definitely doesn't have your outstanding eloquence and charm on his side," Gwen taunted with the appearance of entire severity, nodding with a solemn half-frown. "Wow, she's completely smitten. I never thought I would use that word, but smitten she is. How is he going to get around work?"

"It's walking distance, I'll go with him for awhile, at least until he stops looking like a mugger's wet dream. Seriously, he's so helpless I think even I'm tempted to rob him sometimes."

The latter part of that final sentence was a certain exaggeration (though the barista didn't seem to realize this and now looked highly concerned on top of annoyed) but the former was true enough. Kaiser was improving, but though he looked healthy enough to serve a few cups of coffee up and down the stairs it was obvious he wasn't going to be available for much else. Maybe that was part of why Linette was watching him with such genuine consideration- there was definitely no threat in a guy who could barely sit up straight. Weakness wasn't usually a prerequisite for employees, but Peter had given up on "usual" about the same time he developed the ability to stick to the ceiling of subway trains.

The job had pretty much been in the bag from the moment Linette agreed to an interview, so nobody (except probably Kaiser himself) was exactly surprised when she stood up to shake his hand, saying a few parting words that probably had something to do with the boring legal part of working. Peter watched the two throw this mumbo-jumbo back and forth a moment, then grinned broadly and gave a few dramatic claps as Kaiser walked toward them, expression even more of a daze than was usual.

"That was a very frightening woman," he admitted in way of explanation as he joined them. Gwen gave him an understanding smile, and offered the cup of tea they had bought for a similar purpose, but Peter only shrugged.

"Just wait until she gets mad, it's terrifying."

"Not as much so as May, I am sure?"

"Well Aunt May's a special case, she could probably force supervillains to their knees with a single glare."

"Super what?"

"Don't worry about it."

"When do you start working, Kaiser?" Gwen wasn't concerned with the revelation of supervillainy, they had after all shown him a city leveled by its results, but they had decided it was probably best not to give too many details. Kaiser had enough to worry about without suspecting everyone he met to whip out a magic ray gun or something.

There was a pause as Kaiser sipped his tea, and another as he frowned ever- so- slightly over the rim in apparent thought. "Saturday. That's… two days. One of the employees will be showing me what to do. I don't know how to make coffee, or deal with customers- I am worried I'll only disappoint you both."

"I dunno, I think coffee selling's a little easier than advanced physics, but I may be wrong." Kaiser didn't actually seem so sure of this, so Peter made a note that sarcasm should be reserved for unimportant situations in the near future. "It's nothing tough, you'll have it all down in ten minutes, tops."

"And if I faint?" This hadn't happened in about a week, but Kaiser hadn't been doing much physical activity, either, and the genuine concern in his eyes was mimicked more or less in Gwen's frown. Peter knew the man was more worried about his work habits than his health, but he shared his girlfriend's anxiety over the latter.

"Linette knows what's up. You feel dizzy you can go lie down, that's what breaks are for."

Kaiser didn't look exactly certain, but he was determined to do some kind of work, and so with a shrug somewhere between nonchalant and a simple excuse for movement the man consented. Peter didn't think there was much reason to freak out like this- judging by the way the barista was watching her new coworker, he was going to get along in this place just fine.

 

 

 

***

Work was a strange experience.

It took Kaiser less than a day to become familiar with the routine of working in the shop, yet much of the job could not be classified as routine business. He couldn't, for example, guess what sort of person he would next be serving, or how many, or who would spill their drink and where they might do it. The innovation was a little bit fun at first, but even with the guidance of Anna and Kim (his two coworkers) it was also extremely overwhelming.

Peter and Gwen were, in most ways, stables. He was learning what to expect from them, and even beginning to understand May, and while the woman he worked with were strangers yet they were at least constants he could learn to know. But this constant flow of people… regular customers were a dream of sorts, a break from the near-frantic demands placed on him with each new wave of weary New Yorkers, but even those were few and far between. (Peter and Gwen were, of course, the most common- every day he worked they would stop by, and when they could stay for a drink or two, as well as to provide their embarrassing check-ups on his well being, or to help him home. He felt half like a child, but comforted all the same.)

Mostly it was just oddities. Kaiser would have been terrified by it all, but he found it helped to sort those he served into groups- upstairs were usually two types. The young ones ('teenagers', who Kim always divided into Hipsters, Jocks, Wannabes, and other words he couldn't quite understand) and the haggard adults on their labtops, many of whom were finely dressed while others made up the most slovenly of the café's visitors. And downstairs all sorts took their breaks- mostly it was the rushing working or learning class, a phone almost always under the ear and labtop or textbook tucked away until the final destination was met. Not the most polite, but the least involved, and so usually Kaiser's favorites.

There was always somebody each hour or so who would complain loudly of the prices- as though he had been the one to set them- and another who spent five minutes or upward deciding which drink suited their current fancy. Around the afternoon Kaiser saw swarms of younger customers, most of whom spent only the time it took to purchase their orders actually inside the shop but quite a bit more lingering outside, and by evening things simply became weird.

One man had demanded his coffee be prepared five different times over, until the taste was just right, and then become so frustrated that he demanded to see the manager and argued with Linette for quite some time over why he deserved a free drink. A woman had wandered in drunk, and Kaiser had become so flustered in attempting to deal with her that the girls had needed to come and rescue him from his own confusion. Though their aid had actually become a bit of a frequent occurrence, unfortunately- only once did he have to take the reverse position, when some upstart boy decided he had the right to demand a good deal more than coffee from Kim. Kaiser, seeing she had no desire for this and knowing she had no interest in men at all, had made himself dizzy for a day after by grabbing the boy around the collar and throwing him rather forcefully out the door.

Silence had followed, and not the sort Kaiser assumed was positive. He had expected to be fired, or threatened, but Linette had only asked him to take up night shifts in the recent future.

Which had led to this, a late Friday evening sweeping up the shop an hour or so past closing, while Anna went through inventory with the back door swung open for conversation. It had been nearly two weeks since he had begun working there, and his health had recovered enough that headaches were few and far between, and lifting had become a simple task. Kaiser was glad for it, of course, but more so glad that the wound on his head was more of a scar now, though it was by no means pleasant to look it, even if Anna constantly told him how interesting it was. The girl enjoyed inventing her own stories for how it may have come about, and Kaiser never stopped her. They were interesting at the least, if not quite comforting.

"Maybe you walked in on a robbery- or, even better, I bet it was a drug transaction. Like a big one, with public politicians and cops involved and everything, and they just whacked you with the briefcase to shut you up," she suggested eagerly. "Or maybe it was a wild animal attack."

"Well those squirrels are rather fierce," Kaiser agreed absently, a slight hitch in his voice as he raised one of the tables enough that he might sweep underneath it. It was amazing what a mess one small room could accumulate in the course of a few hours, sometimes he thought people must be putting in a good deal of literal effort to accomplish it. (Of course, there were kids like Peter, who came in with their skateboards and forgot until someone like Gwen alerted them to the problem. Kaiser hardly minded, though- he loved the chance to be doing something, so long as he didn't work long enough to bring up another headache.)

Anna chose to bypass his little commentary, rather than run the risk of forgetting her next theory. "Or maybe the Alice statue came to life and beat the shit out of you. That's the one you were next to, right?"

"So Peter tells me. I don't know, really. I haven't gone to the park yet, or at least I don't recall it."

"Seriously? Don't you want to look for a clue or anything?" This was followed by the usual thumping of boxes that meant Anna had finished her counting quickly and was in the process of shoving materials back onto the shelves. As Kaiser was almost done with his cleaning, this meant an early night- free time he didn't quite want. "Knowing nothing about you must suck."

"It's not awful, I think. It's… frightening, is all." Everything was a threat. Kaiser knew he viewed things the same way a child might, as new and unsettling and best left avoided. Yet unlike a child he had no mother or father to cling to in his fright, and he could hardly count Peter as anything but a younger brother, so while his company was welcome, he had the feeling it was an inadequate substitute. For what, though, he couldn't say. "I'm learning."

The last of the tables cleaned and dirt exiled to the trashcan, Kaiser bypassed Anna as she exited the closet to enter it and set the cleaning supplies out of the way. She waited outside as he shut the lights and door, and then stepped in with the keys to lock it. "But you're an adult, you can't seriously know _nothing_ \- do you even know what a kiss is?"

"Well, from what I've read it seems to be when two people enjoy each other's company enough to smash their mouths together. I can't imagine it's pleasant."

"Well it is. Seriously." He must have looked suspicious, because Anna huffed up in indignation that quickly turned to a wily sort of grin as she pondered the situation, which Kaiser wasn't particularly comfortable having aimed toward him. He shifted uncomfortably, resting against the counter for something to do. "Try it. Hold still, okay?"

"Um, what-?" Kaiser expected it, really, but he still jumped an inch or so when she snatched him up and pressed her lips to his. It really was just clumsy, for a moment, but somewhere in his surprise Kaiser had brought his hands to the girl's waist, and her own locked around his neck, pulling him closer with a surprised but amused little laugh.

It was a rare moment when he remembered anything, but this was the first time his body gave him cues with no mental recollection. It was a vaguely foggy experience, from a thinking standpoint, and by the time they separated and Kaiser could actually think a moment he was a little breathless and a good bit embarrassed. "Um- I'm not quite sure- that was startling."

"Fun though?"

"Forward. Fun, but somehow I doubt May would approve. Do people generally kiss strangers?"

"Some. You're not a stranger, Kaiser, you're an attractive British coworker with memory loss. Call it… exploring." Anna was still close, but Kaiser supposed he was to blame for that- his hands hadn't moved, and he was on the verge of pulling them away for tact's sake. Yet he was curious, and no harm seemed to have been done for it, so he stayed as he was.

"Well, I did say I was trying to learn."

"Then call Peter and tell him you're staying in the upstairs room for overtime or something, you're not done learning yet."

 

 

 

***

Very little of genuine consequence may have come from this little… episode of sorts had Anna not been such a fan of her phone. Kaiser, needless to say, had been more than keen to sleep in until their shift at work began, but she had no head wounds hindering her ability to actually rest when she slept, and so pestered him for about an hour while he was still in the realm of semi-consciousness.

"You know, you are really adorable right now. Mind if I post a picture?"

Anna no doubt had her camera out and poised, but Kaiser couldn't quite drag his head up to actually look. He registered only that he was at least half covered by a blanket, and turned with his scar hidden against the pillow, and felt this was enough to mumble some noise of consent. Of course, Peter's warnings that he may be best keeping himself secret never even jumped to mind, and so it was that a picture of himself lying between rumpled bed- sheets ended up on the screens of SHIELD's virtual security team.

Kaiser wouldn't have known to be concerned by this even if he were fully aware, and so there was certainly nothing unhappy in his manner when he and Anna finally returned to work. As was usual on Saturdays, Peter and Gwen took up a table for homework within two hours of the store's opening, and were back in the business of amusing themselves by taking up his time with inane questions. (Or, at least, Peter was- Gwen may have smiled infrequently, but she never actually joined in the distractions.)

"So you're sure green tea lattes don't come with a shot of caramel?"

"Peter, you hate green tea. I can give you caramel, but you're chancing at an expensive joke."

"Hey now, customer's always right. And I say green tea goes with caramel."

"Give me the five dollars and you're welcome to prove me wrong."

The sad part was that Peter actually took this chance to dive for his wallet, and Kaiser had no doubt he would have gone through actually paying if they hadn't been interrupted by a sudden, collective girlish gasps and equally numbered mutterings of admiration or awe. It wasn't often the people in this place agreed on… well, on anything, so Kaiser pardoned himself quickly and glanced up, but saw nothing more impressive than a well dressed man holding a rather ostentatious suitcase making his way into the shop, and quite a few people stopping to stare and nudge their friends if they didn't happen to have noticed yet. Even Peter had suddenly frozen, with a look of adoration that had Gwen rolling her eyes.

"Am I missing something?" He wondered at a whisper, unsure if it would be appropriate to say this at a volume that might be overheard. The man wasn't paying him much attention though, so dangers seemed low- he simply slid into a seat as though oblivious to the stares and absent-mindedly began to flick through a menu, not looking altogether impressed.

"Yeah, you kind of are," Gwen admitted with one of her typical half-laughing smiles, "but don't worry about it. Go get that guy his food, I'll handle Peter's fanboy breakdown."

Kaiser nodded and drew himself up as she, still laughing quietly, leaned forward to snap her fingers repeatedly in front of Peter's dazed expression. He smiled at the boy's amusing awe but spared them no more than that minute glance- apparently this was an important customer, no good to keep him waiting, especially as the man had set down his menu after about ten seconds of browsing it.

"I take it you are ready to order, sir?" The man glanced up at his voice, wearing the oddest expression, entirely blank but for something in his eyes that had Kaiser stepping back nervously.

But it cleared up with a shake of the man's head, and after he'd watched him a moment longer he nodded, flipping open the menu to tap, seemingly randomly, on an order. "Yeah, get me that. And an espresso, biggest size you've got. Shot of…I dunno, vanilla, sounds fun."

Fun coffee. Well, not the most usual of terms, but hardly obscure. Kaiser jotted down the order, confirmed it, and went on his way with a brisk smile. When he carried the sheet off to Kim he found the girl watching him in a way that clearly suggested she found him moronic. "Oh what have I done now?"

The paper was snatched away and handed back to Jack (their cook for actual food, who was excessively unfriendly and avoided Kaiser to the best extent of his ability) and a sharp gaze turned on him, even as Kim went about making the coffee. "That's Tony Stark. How do even you not know that?"

"Pardon?"

"Tony Stark. Iron Man. The superhero."

"Oh, yes- I know him. Really? I expected something a touch… grander." Kaiser glanced back over his shoulder towards the man, shorter than Peter and himself by far, and found nothing that might mark him different than any ordinary business worker. There was a faint light beneath his shirt, but he supposed that was just a phone shining through. "He's so small."

"What'd you expect? Not everybody can be tall, dark, and British like you." Kim set the espresso down on a small platter and nudged it to him, nearly knocking the unfortunate drink off the counter, then took advantage of the freed empty space to rest her folded arms on it. "He lives on the opposite end of town, no idea what he's doing in here at ten in the morning. He look drunk to you?"

"No, he was sober. Perhaps he had work out here?"

"A rich guy like him still doesn't stop by places like this. He could get beans flown in and hand picked from Cuba if he wanted to."

"Perhaps he's in a hurry. Or lazy."

Kim shrugged, but Kaiser could tell she was dissatisfied with such an explanation, so he picked up the tray and turned away, speaking over his shoulder as he went. "Oh very well, I'll weasel something out of him. But don't get too excited, I'm sure he's not here for anything special."

It would take awhile yet for Stark's food to finish preparing, so Kaiser felt natural enough bringing him his drink a little early. He set it on the table with a few required pleasantries then straightened up and tucked the platter underneath his arm as he made to leave, stumbling slightly in his step and hesitating as if his eye had just now been drawn to the briefcase. "What an unusual color- do they usually come in red and gold like that?"

"Nope, custom made. Benefit of being me, I guess," Stark was clearly more interested in his drink than conversation, but still Kaiser leaned over slightly for a proper look, noting that the briefcase seemed to be made of metal. It was mostly a ploy, his interest, but he really couldn't help being intrigued.

"I can't imagine what you would need a thing like this for. Most of the people who come in just keep a few files with them." Kaiser knew better than to reach out and touch a stranger's property, so he simply rose, now, done with all the inspecting his eyes alone could do. "I don't see a lock, though, why such a protective case?"

Stark didn't seem to like the question much. "I don't take the best care of my things, call it a precaution if you want."

"Against what?" Kaiser wouldn't get his answer, however. At that moment Jack called impatiently to let him know Stark's food was ready to come out, and with a quick apology for taking the man's time he hurried off to comply.

Kim was waiting with the plate and a curious expression at the counter, but he could answer her with no more than a shake of his head. "I really do think it's just business- maybe he prefers to eat out. Not everybody has expensive tastes just because they can afford expensive food," he replied quickly, before she could tease him for his failures in casual interrogation. He hadn't had enough time to get much else out of the man, unfortunately. "He's a hero you said, it can't be anything devious."

"Who says heroes can't be devious? Actually, who says 'devious'?"

"I do, I read it in a book. Do people not use that word?"

Kim tsked and shook her head, mouth twisted in a sympathetic grimace. "Yeah, honey, no. Don't believe books all the time, you'll end up like Anna."

"Not necessarily a bad thing."

"She thinks you were attacked by a magic statue."

"Perhaps she's correct, then who'll look foolish?"

"Oh just go serve your devious superhero and shut up, you have other customers. We should get Stark out of here before Peter's fanboy drool creates a lake or something."

That did seem to be a danger, so with another laugh Kaiser stood and turned, again looking back as he went, intending to offer some reply. Yet when he did he saw Kim had her eyes fixed on something past him and was midway through a yelp of surprise. Startled, expecting some robber or something of the sort, Kaiser began to turn around, only for something to close around his neck the moment it was halfway exposed.

The platter fell to the floor with an awful noise as the contents shattered, but Kaiser paid it little attention. His hands automatically reached up to try and tug those around his throat away, but his attacker had him raised half a foot off the ground, and the constriction was, as a result, already keeping the blood and clarity from his head. Metal, that much he could tell, cold and unyielding, no matter how he scrambled to undo the grip.

"Sorry if I'm not in the mood for your games, Loki. Enough joking around- how did you get out of Asgard? What are you doing back here?" A mechanic voice demanded, accompanied by a slight increase of the pressure, cutting away what little air intake he'd actually been receiving.

Loki? Something about the word drew Kaiser's attention, but he couldn't focus, he couldn't even breathe. He tried to speak, to say he had no idea what was happening or what these questions meant, but all he managed was an incoherent choking gasp, and eventually nothing more than the movement of his lips. Attempting to form words with a meaning he was quickly forgetting, while his attempts to fight his way free grew rapidly weaker.

This pity act of Loki's was beginning to piss Tony off more than he might have normally thought possible. The god was a good performer, he'd give him that, but if he was going to keep this up and refuse to answer… well Fury had been pretty clear, and for once he'd agreed with the Director's methods- if Loki didn't cooperate, no use keeping him around.

"Three seconds, Maid Café," He warned. Loki wasn't a complete idiot, if he didn't take the threat seriously it was his own fault. And the god didn't seem on the verge of speaking, so Tony began to power up the repulsor, a steadily growing light- firing from this close, point blank at the neck? Even Loki wouldn't walk that one off easily. "One-"

JARVIS, ever faithful as he was, alerted him to a rapidly approaching object to the left, about the same moment that object knocked into the side of his face plate and sent him crashing through the nearby table (evacuated, obviously; most people had either packed up and left or scrambled away from their seats in confusion when Tony'd warned them to shut up about his getting the suit on), not enough to hurt but enough that the wood snapped beneath him, and sent him ungracefully to the floor.

 _Now_ people started to panic- and really, who could blame them? Peter figured it was probably pretty weird seeing one superhero come up and smack another one through a table. "I just punched Iron Man. Oh my god. I'm never washing this fist again." Wait a second… "Oh my god, I just punched Iron Man! Shit, uh- hey, sorry man, but that's my friend-"

He dove to the side almost before he realized he'd done it, the spider sense practically dragging his body along with it. Still, Stark's repulsor blast singed the side of his arm- more damage done to the fabric than his skin at that low level of power- and would have hit him square in the chest a millisecond sooner. There was a soft clanking of machinery as Iron Man got to his feet, and instinctively Peter took up his own fighting pose, hovering just in front of where Kaiser had hit the ground, chest heaving and completely unresponsive to the efforts his coworkers were making to help him.

Thankfully, Iron Man did no more than raise his hand and light it up, though he almost seemed to be glaring through that mask. Which was of course impossible, but still a little disturbing. "Back off before you get hurt, kid. He's not who you think he is."

"Really? Cause it looks to me like he's a guy who was trying to sell you some food. What's wrong, didn't like the coffee or something?" It felt weird, throwing this sort of banter at Stark- he knew him, sort of, they'd worked together more than once at the rebuilding site. He was a good guy, something must have been up for him to go after Kaiser like that- but the fact still stood that he _was_ going after Kaiser. "What happened to role models these days? Armed assault isn't really the best- whoa, hey!"

Another near miss, but this time when Peter looked up from his dodge it was just in time to see Iron Man shooting towards him before he was caught around the waist by a metal grip, and they both went flying out the door.

It was propped open on nice days like this, or Peter would have caught a back full of glass- he didn't have much time to appreciate though, considering he was trying to break out of the grip of a superhero amongst superheroes. "Whoa, come on, not cool man."

Neither of them wanted a fight, or this could have gotten pretty ugly from here- especially, much as he hated to admit it, for Peter. He was still pretty new to this business and Iron Man was… well, Iron Man. And also now dangling him a few hundred feet in the air, though that would have been the easiest part of all this to remedy. "You be a good boy and swing off to deal with some more reptiles. I have a mass murderer to catch, and you're not making it any easier on me."

"Mass murderer? Dude, have you seen that guy? He faints when he has to lift too much, he'd have trouble killing a fly!" Bad idea to give this much info to Stark- superheroes weren't supposed to know that much about random waiters. Then again, the place had plenty of regulars and most of them knew Kaiser by name now, so maybe he could pass it off if it came to that. Bigger problems for now.

"See, here's the thing, he's lying. It's a pretty easy thing to do, I'm sure you've heard of it."

"Ouch."

"This isn't the time for joking around, kid! Stay out of this."

Peter knew it was only because the man knew he'd be fine, but he was still more than a little insulted when he was dropped a moment after this comment. Iron Man probably thought he'd swing off with his tail between his legs, but there was a phone poll nearby, and on thinking quickly Peter managed to catch it with his web and loop around, very nearly smacking into some pedestrians, to shoot off again, this time colliding into Stark a second before he pinpointed the café again.

He would have been impressed with his own quickness, but the other man didn't seem too appreciative of being kicked in the face, and Peter didn't have many handholds up here. By the time he swung off again Iron Man was already back at him, and this time the repulsor that nicked his shoulder burnt enough to do some minor damage. It wouldn't kill him, but it wasn't a friendly match anymore.

Okay, rude. Peter didn't know what he was planning to do, but he did know that once Kaiser was in a hospital he'd be safe from misjudging superheroes, and so rather than do the smart thing and call for a truce, he shot a string of web at the armor's eye slots. Iron Man just tilted his head to avoid them, but he revved up a second later, and Peter knew he had the distraction he needed.

If he could keep from getting his ass kicked in the next ten minutes.

Running would just be stupid, so he quickly scrambled to the top of a building, hoping to get some ground available, and ducked and rolled to avoid yet another beam. Iron Man knew better than to fly over the roof, though, and it wasn't like Peter had many effective attacks from this distance. The suit, however, had plenty. If he could just break the repulsors…

Not too likely, considering how quickly they fired at him. Peter swung off to the safety of a billboard to avoid another barrage, but this time kicked immediately off again, carrying himself just far enough to throw a mid-air (and probably really impractical) punch. It missed, to no great surprise, but he spun as best he could and shot one web to the brick building to his left, the other towards the armor's jets. Iron Man saw what he was doing, and though he didn't quite move his foot in time to protect it, he did immediately grab hold of the web and tug, throwing Peter off-balance before the other could catch against the building.

And then he turned, obviously intending to fly around with Peter stuck like this. Okay, bad idea- he quickly detached the web and tumbled to the ground, fairly close thanks to the length of the web, and rolled as he hit it, coming into a defensive stance just as Iron Man crashed down in front of him. The café was behind his back, now- no chance of the man just walking through.

"You're making a big mistake, Kid." Stark warned as he stepped forward, slowly enough to give Peter the obvious chance to think. "I'm not going to hurt anybody, he can take a lot more than you think he can. Just trust me on- what? Fury, the hell are you doing? I'm working. JARVIS screen my calls or someth- huh?"

It took Peter a moment to realize he was speaking into the helmet, to somebody he couldn't hear right now. His defensive position didn't waver, but he did frown slightly beneath the mask, not sure if this was a sign for or against him.

***

Amongst the entire crowd, many of whom had seemingly remained out of curiosity, Gwen had been the only one with the foresight to immediately call for an ambulance, but until they arrived Kaiser had nobody to count on but his coworkers. Not necessarily a bad thing in most circumstances, but none of them, even Linette, had any extensive medical training, though she had at least stopped them from CPR. Kaiser had air. He didn't really _want_ it, not now when each breath seemed to rip open his throat, but he had it. He didn't need breath, or maybe he did- it was hard to tell, every part of his neck was hurting too badly for guesses of his own.

And he could taste blood- he couldn't see who it was, probably Anna, but somebody had actually come near to fainting when they bent over him and, as far as he could guess, found his lips red and trails of blood falling from the corners of his mouth. He could taste and feel it, though why it was a problem was hard to tell right now. There were people crowding around him, panicking, and meanwhile he was almost relieved.

Loki. The man had called him that- an odd name, to be sure, but it felt right to hear, probably right to say (though he could hardly test now), and certainly right to think. Loki. Kaiser was nothing but a string of letters to him, but this had the ring of something that belonged, something that was his. With or without his memory, he was sure of it.

"-iser!" That voice was loud, and familiar. He grimaced and tried to focus on it, but his head swam as much as the image did, and it seemed a vain effort. "Kaiser, hey, listen to me okay? We're getting a hospital, you need to stay awake. Okay, just don't fall asleep. Oh god, are you okay?"

Peter's voice, that was it, but why was he dressed so strangely? The boy was nothing but a blur of red. He looked up at him for a moment and smiled weakly, almost oblivious to what had been said. "He knew my name," Loki croaked wearily.

And the next moment dropped his head back in a dead faint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whee? See, I kept the OCs minimal because I love you guys. The story just kind of called for them, sorry folks.
> 
> Anyway, no more of the name Kaiser now, so sorry to those who enjoyed it (if there were any).


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Battling supervillains is Tony Stark's job- but sometimes things just can't seem to be so simple.

“Stark, do you mind telling me what the everloving fuck you thought you were doing?”  
  
A question Tony had been getting quite a lot lately. He hated it when people asked that- much less passive aggressive and much more time effective to just say they thought he was an idiot.  He sighed with little tact and turned a bored expression on Fury, more amused than concerned by the emotion he was met with. There was probably a reason the Commander was named as he was. “Capturing Loki, who, I might add, you sent me after.”  
  
“In the middle of a god-damned cafe?”  
  
“What did you expect me to do, lure him outside for a nice stroll? Loki’s not a moron, he would have caught on. He could’ve killed half the people in that place before I even put on the suit.”  
  
“So you grabbed him by the throat and choked him? In public?” Fury snarled- really, snarled. He was literally baring his teeth at Tony, though he doubted the man realized he was doing it. It was both hilarious and strangely terrifying, though unfortunately for Fury the former was the more prevalent response.  
  
Natasha gave him a warning look from across the table, but Tony had ignored more severe glares from Pepper on a daily basis for years. “Yeah, I did. What did you expect me to do, invite him to pistols at dawn?”  
  
“I expected you to handle the situation with caution. A five year old would have noticed something was up. I ought to reassign you to secretary work, Stark, because I sure as hell don’t want you on the field after that!”  
  
Like Tony was afraid of Fury’s orders- he wasn’t like Natasha, he could act outside of SHIELD’s direction when he wished, and they both knew it. So he only raised one eyebrow, though it was perfectly possible the threat would be played out before he even left this room, and watched with some amusement as a vein throbbed in Fury’s temple. Of course Nat couldn’t just let this go, it pained her to watch his idiocy in action sometimes, and, perhaps luckily, the woman cleared her throat to draw their attention before things could escalate to the dealing out of actual repercussions.  
  
“I don’t think Stark was thinking things through as clearly as he could have, Sir. Loki is a sore spot for all of us.” Tony nodded, only somewhat sarcastically, and waited as Natasha studied him, as seemingly blank-faced as ever. “He was probably afraid.”  
  
Tony went rigid at the words, his cocky smile degraded to a less-than-pleased frown, and his eyes turned to the blank wall as everyone else’s went straight to him. Only four sets (one incomplete), but three of them belonging to people he’d rather not be getting into the topic of fear with, not if he could help it. Leave it to Natasha to ruin his good mood.  
  
“You were scared, Stark? Of a scrawny god with no powers?” Fury sounded somewhere between pissed and astonished, rolling his eye when Tony turned to him with a blank look. “You’re Iron Man! A super hero does not get scared of waiters!”  
  
“To be fair, we’re talking about Loki. He seems like he’s helpless now, but for all we know it’s all an act.” Bruce cut in, giving up his pretending-not-to-be-there act in favor of defending Tony. “Loki tricked us before, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s up to it again.”  
  
“You should’ve just blasted him in the head, Stark. Saved me the trouble,” Clint muttered, the first noise he had made, to Tony’s knowledge, since he’d told the archer a week ago that he’d seen Loki at the construction sight. Ever since intelligence had pulled up that picture of him all he’d been doing was twirling an arrow in his hands wherever he went and... staring. It was kind of creepy, actually.  
  
“I already told you, Barton, nobody kills Loki until I find out what he’s doing here and if he’s got another army coming with him. I’ve got no word from Thor, and I don’t want to make a move without Asgard’s approval,” Fury spoke slowly, as he always did with them, like one might to a child. A child who you really wanted to kick through a wall.  
  
Clint glared, but said nothing, only went back to twirling and watching his arrow as if he had never seen anything quite like it before. That, unfortunately, meant Fury went straight back to Tony, who was finding it harder to meet his gaze. “Well, Stark?”  
  
“I don’t see why it matters- we say a criminal took his identity, apologize, pay a few hospital bills and nobody would know. Shapeshifters would not be the weirdest thing to happen to this city.”  
  
“It matters, Stark, because you’ve just made Loki a national fucking celebrity. People are watching _this_ bullshit,” At last Fury now threw down the newspaper he’d been clutching for the past half hour, which somehow slid with expert precision to a halt right in front of Tony, who turned it around and picked it up without glancing at a word, “and getting all choked up about the guy who killed their kids, just because he was attacked by a national fucking hero in a public coffee shop! You think you’re scared? You’re Iron Man. You’re the only reason half these people felt safe to walk outside after what happened to Manhattan, and now you’re the reason they’re afraid of the people who are supposed to protect them. It doesn’t matter how I cover it up, do you know how badly people want to hate you, Stark? I’ve been trying to keep you a hero for years and you run out and pull this kind of thing because you’re _scared_?”  
  
Ignoring, for the moment, that he hadn’t even been the one to say anything about fear, Tony instead devoted his attention to the paper. The headline was pretty blunt- Iron Man Assaults Civilian- but he was more interested in the image and the article. Loki was a god. Loki was ridiculously powerful, Loki was capable of surviving a very violent bashing around by the Hulk at his angriest, and yet Loki was lying in a hospital bed with a mask to keep him breathing and bandages ringing his throat. Tony thought he looked awful, but his sympathy was pretty much nonexistent. He was less worried that Loki was doing a poor job of recovering than he was that the newspapers were making such a big deal of it- whoever had written this thing obviously thought he was some kind of martyr.  
  
“Anyone else think it’s weird he’s going by the name Kaiser? Creepy much,” Tony concluded, looking up again to meet Fury’s eye. “I don’t see how this is a bad thing. I’d rather have people pissed at me than have him wandering the streets. I’ll admit, he looks kind of harmless here, but that is Loki, and he’s gonna have something up his sleeve.”  
  
“This, Stark, is a very bad thing. Their lives are in your hands, and now they don’t even trust you. What do you think-”  
  
God dammit. “All right, Fury, I was scared. Okay? You never had to fight him. You don’t know how easy it would have been for him to just reach out and- snap my neck, or blow that whole place to hell, or make me do it for him!”  
  
Ah, dammit, there it was. Fury’s look turned to narrowed but cautious eyes, and Bruce’s to some probably misguided sympathy in the form of a rare half-grimace. Clint stopped twirling his arrow abruptly and watched him with a completely blank expression, the only one to hold Tony’s eye even for a moment, though he was annoyed to realize they were all trying to manage it. He looked away and muttered a curse under his breath, waiting for someone to speak. Eventually, he saw Clint nod out of the corner of his eye and go back to his arrow twirling, and like that something snapped, the tension spilling away silently.  
  
“What did he do to you, Stark?” Natasha of all people had the sense to ask, leaning forward with slightly narrowed eyes, watching him like something between a cat and a psychiatrist.  
  
Tony felt like he was being put up on display, but he knew his friends too well, by now, to expect they would let this drop. So he let out a frustrated sigh and turned his head away until the question was repeated once more, then glanced back just long enough to see them all looking towards him. Jesus Christ, what was wrong with them all? “He tried to work the mind puppet mojo on me when he showed up at my tower. This thing stopped him, so he threw me out the window. No big deal.”  
  
“I don’t know, I’m thinking it was a big deal, or you wouldn’t have pulled something so god-damn stupid.” Fury retorted, though he seemed, now, as curious as he was pissed off.  
  
Dammit, Tony hated the way they were looking at him. Especially Clint- after all, did he really have a reason to complain? He hadn’t actually been taken over, not like the archer. “He could’ve done it, Fury. It would’ve been easy, all he had to do was move the damn staff somewhere else, and what could I have done about it? I’m done making weapons, I don’t want somebody turning me into one.”  
  
And Loki had been so, so close to doing just that, to grabbing his mind and just using him. He’d heard from Barton just what that felt like, how complete Loki’s control was once he got it. You were forced to see exactly what you were doing, but you couldn’t even bring yourself to hate it, you just... did it, and so long as it made Loki happy you were glad to.  
  
And fuck, if that idea didn’t terrify Tony- he was not the best at making decisions, and he didn’t always trust his own mind, but his head was his, the only thing he possessed that nobody else had ever pretended a claim to. And then Loki had come along swinging that staff, thinking to make him nothing more than a puppet he could send off on a killing spree. God, to think he might have been made to fight, maybe kill his friends... he didn’t doubt that they could have stopped him, but a knock on the head in that situation wouldn’t be easy. More likely than not Hulk would’ve just grabbed him and snapped his spine like a twig if he tried to shoot at him. Tony grimaced at the image and tightened his jaw, refusing to allow Fury any more chance for mocking him over this.  
  
“So what, you were trying to kill him?” This from Clint, again startling everyone with his sudden ability to speak. Tony turned to the archer, unsurprised to find the gaze that met his piercing, not unfriendly but intense enough to leave him uncomfortable. “Or just keep him back? Don’t you get it? We send him off to Daddy for a spanking and he comes back in less than a month. I don’t care if he’s supposed to be a god, I could kill him. Right now, anyone could.”  
  
“Did Loki suck up all your common sense when he got into your head, or are you just naturally like that?” Fury snapped, in such a way that Tony had to narrow his eyes further still, even if Clint only perpetuated that blank look. “Nobody is killing him, you got it?”  
  
There was a long silence, the kind that felt like something stretched too thin too fast, and Clint shook his head. The arrow hadn’t stopped its turning. “No, I don’t.”  
  
Well, at least the attention was off him, but Tony still didn’t like to wonder what the look on Fury’s face meant, or how much that slight crease in Tasha’s forehead said about Clint’s mental state. “Thought so. Barton, you’re on lockdown until further notice, I don’t want you leaving base for so much as a second, are we clear?”  
  
“Sure,” Clint said with nothing more than a shrug, eerily nonchalant. He waited for more, saw Fury was done, and stood up to leave, stopping beside Tony to glance down at the paper with a wicked sort of smile. “I’ve got that picture on my fridge.”  
  
“You are a man of interesting tastes, Barton, and my interior decorator would probably not agree with any of them. Surprised you didn’t blow it up and tape it to your wall.”  
  
“The guy at Kinkos wouldn’t do it.” Clint sounded so wistfully regretful that Tony had to wonder if he weren’t actually serious, but the archer was nodding a farewell in that way that said his talking spell was done, and a few seconds later he was gone.  
  
“Well. That was... disturbing,” Bruce noted casually, watching him leave.  
  
Natasha did not look happy with the observation, but Tony had to agree, despite the threat of death-by-Russian. Loki’s re-appearance was weighing on all of them, but none nearly so hard as Clint. “I think we’re done here?”  
  
“Wait, the hell are we going to do about Loki? All we decided is that Clint’s probably gone vigilante.”  
  
“We’ve decided, Stark, that’s it’s your problem,” Fury retorted, “and I expect a press release by the evening news. Just smile and make ‘em like you, or spend a few weeks locked up for assault while your secretary complains to the big house. Doesn’t make a difference to me.”  


* * *

 

A metal hand clamped around the throat was nothing to laugh at- the doctors said Kaiser (or Loki, as he insisted they call him, however they tried to insist he couldn’t possibly be a Norse god) had avoided a cracked neck through a practical miracle. Surviving that, half of them were still in shock that his windpipe hadn’t been completely crushed, or that he could breathe even with the respirator in the state he was in.  
  
Peter had to agree with them, thinking back to how badly Loki had looked by the time he got back from fighting Iron Man. (And boy, the weirdness of that one wouldn’t wear off anytime soon.) The bruises on his neck were nearly black now, but at least some of the color had returned to his skin, and anything was better than seeing all that blood running from his mouth. He’d looked pretty much dead, and they’d all thought he was, until the emergency response had somehow discovered a pulse. Waiting for them, though, was a lot of panic, a lot of failed reassurances to frantic coworkers and customers, and a lot of wondering why. From how he’d been speaking, Iron Man had mistaken Loki for some kind of murderer, but he hadn’t said who he was supposed to be or why he might be there, just gone in for the almost-kill.  
  
And Loki, when he had finally awakened, was as in the dark as any of them- more, in fact, since he had no idea who Iron man really was. “I have no idea why he might have gone after me. He knew my name, though, so I might be whoever he says I am. Really, I can’t remember. I am very sorry.”  
  
Same answer, same question. Day after day. Peter was surprised Aunt May hadn’t smacked any of these reporters over the head yet, but none of them stayed too long before the hospital staff sent them off, anyway, and Loki seemed too happy about having a name to bother even that he had almost died. Again. Though he did seem to appreciate the pampering- and the nurses. There were probably a million rules against it, but the amount of times Peter had walked in to find Loki lip-locked with some poor girl was an almost painful number. The fact that Loki didn’t even know what a relationship was made it pretty hard not to feel sorry for them, but today Peter’s only concern was for avoiding Loki’s room, not whoever he may be flirting with inside it.  
  
And boy, did that feel weird- standing around in a hospital barring Tony Stark entrance to a patient’s room. Normally he would have been relieved to see the guy, but now all he could think was that he was a supposed-to-be-normal boy with no backup except for his nervous-seeming girlfriend attempting to ward off a super hero. A superhero he would normally have done anything to meet, rather than anything to be rid of. Peter wished they could call the cops or staff on this, but Loki had no idea he had a visitor and so couldn’t refuse him, and the police had been forced to give up caring once Loki refused to file any sort of charges. Even against Stark there was a case enough to have him dealing with hell for a few weeks at least, but Loki didn’t seem to want any kind of vengeance. And, Peter had to admit, he really did not want to be part of something going against Stark, either. Idolization was quick to dwindle, not so quick to vanish.  
  
Especially when said idol was managing to look intimidating, nonchalant, and repentant all at once, even while Gwen was giving him her best ‘fuck you’ look. “Look, kid, no suit. No press either, so I’m not even getting a publicity boost out of this. So play nice and share your friend, k?”  
  
“My friend is only here because of you. No.” Peter couldn’t tell if the thing boiling in his chest was anger or some mingled sort of grief, but he hated it, whatever it was. “He’s had enough without you, you know. So go, get out, just leave him alone.”  
  
“Yeah, I figured all that out, actually. Look, if your pal isn’t who I think he is, I want to apologize. If he is the same guy, you’ll regret not letting me in that room,” Stark retorted, but did not push past Peter or even make the attempt. He seemed willing to go with whatever he was told was alright, and that only made it more annoying, somehow. “Plus there’s at least a fifty percent chance I owe him a drink, and it’s just gonna get awkward if I wait too long to offer.”  
  
“And how are you supposed to tell that? He doesn’t remember who he is.” But he’d remembered his name, when Stark had said it- didn’t that mean he was the same person this man suspected him of being? If that was the case he was a criminal, and one bad enough to have Iron Man losing his cool in a pretty violent way. Peter almost thought he didn’t care. If Loki didn’t remember committing a crime there was hardly any point in punishing him for it. “He doesn’t remember anything.”  
  
“Fun fact, amnesia is one of the easiest things in the world to pretend to have. A knock on the head’s a nice excuse for a second chance.”  
  
“Which would mean he wants one.”  
  
“Point taken.” For a while Stark did nothing but stare, his expression not quite blank but too unfamiliar for Peter to figure out just yet, before ending the stillness with an anticlimactic shrug. “I won’t hurt him. If he’s not I think he is I won’t want to, and if he is I won’t be able to. Good enough for you, yet?”  
  
Peter honestly wished it could be- this guy was an idol, a hero, a good person. But so was Doctor Connors. “First tell me who you think he is.”  
  
“Can’t do that. If I’m right he’s someone we want to hush up, not broadcast. Sorry, kid,” Stark said, looking not the least bit apologetic. “I can tell you he killed at least eighty people, and one of them a friend of mine. Now are we done here? I don’t think I’m a qualified babysitter, I’d rather get in there.”  
  
“Um- yeah, okay. Fine. We’re not leaving you alone though, we’re going too.” Whatever Stark had to talk about sounded pretty secretive, and Peter wasn’t going to even give him the chance to keep them out of that room.  
  
“Whatever you want, kid.”  
  
Well, not much else he could do after that, was there? Hospital staff was at the end of the hallway and Peter wasn’t actually technically allowed to keep anybody out of the room, so he shuffled off to the side and let Stark through. “I really don’t like this. Should I go get May?”  
  
Gwen, wearing that familiar worried little frown. “No, it’ll be okay, he doesn’t have the suit, i can handle him like this if I need to.”  
  
“Peter, you’re practically drooling over him.”  
  
“Hey, I can prioritize! If he goes after Loki again, I go after him again. I can do that, you know. If he does get violent or anything run and call someone, okay?” War plans against Tony Stark. Who actually did that? Supervillains. And now him, apparently.  
  
He let out a groan of annoyance and confusion, which at least got Gwen to smile, and sidled his own way into the room, only about half a minute behind Stark. The man was standing at the end of the bed, actually quiet, and Loki had given up the book he was currently holding to stare at him, a little paler than normal but not really afraid.  
  
He was, in fact, feeling more nervous for everyone else’s sake than his own- Stark was looking rather worn, as though this whole process was bearing down on him one way or another with the social consequences, or perhaps whatever had compelled him to attack in the first place was unnerving him now. And he was certainly upsetting Peter, to no great surprise. How odd that he would be here, now.  
  
“Hey,” Stark said at last, shrugging in the silence. “Sorry about choking you. Usually not so rough outside the bedroom.”  
  
That... was not something he had tried. And, considering the state of his throat at the moment, not something he wished to try. “You knew my name, I can deal with a little hospital time. We’re old friends, this place and I.”  
  
“Yeah, so I’ve heard. That knock on the head wiped away everything?”  
  
“Yes.” Not even a hint of his identity, on his body or in his head, until Stark had attacked him. He was hardly going to turn him away in anger for a little beating, now was he? “Even my name. But you knew it. How?”  
  
“What makes you so sure it’s your name?” Stark was frowning, looking at his hair and his eyes like he couldn’t quite believe them. “Are you wearin’ contacts?”  
  
“No. Why?”  
  
“Nothin’.”  
  
“No it’s not. And I am sure because I am. It sounds right to me. Do you think it’s not mine?” Loki was almost afraid of that- he was sure, but Stark was looking concerned. Like he was not so certain himself.  
  
Peter seemed to find solace in this, but Loki felt a moment of panic at Stark’s sudden indecision. Loki. A brief word, but one of the few things that had felt right to him, any way or another, in all the time he could remember, and he did not want to lose it. “Nope, not sure. But hey, might be a more common name than I thought, no need to get all identity- crisis on me,” the man assured with something of a grimace, which was at least a change. Stark was quite expressive, but in very minute ways thus far, most of which were obscured by those glasses behind which his eyes hid. “Y’know, I might be able to figure out who you are. Or were, depending on your philosophical preference. Little trial and error might be involved, fair warning.”  
  
“How do you intend to do that?” Of course Peter and Gwen seemed piqued by suspicion at those words, but Loki was plenty curious enough to sit up attentively, showing Star his consideration for the offer.  
  
“First? Question. Are you evil?”  
  
“That would depend on _your_ philosophical preference, but I’ve seen little reason to say I am, no.”  
  
Stark did smirk at that, though the visible total of his emotion concluded itself in no more than a shrug. “Touche. First test passed, take ten points. Second round up. I want you to come by my mansion, let me run some tests. Best case scenario would be you staying there for a week or two, but I think the kid over there’d pop a blood vessel if I suggested it.”  
  
“You know, that technically was suggesting it,” Peter grumbled, in his pleasant half-heartful way. “Uh, no veins bursting, right? That sounds kind of painful.”  
  
“Hm, no, you’re safe for now.” Gwen smiled, and if Loki had paused a moment he might have been able to think of what seemed so off about the look, but Stark had distracted him from such things very thoroughly, and his attention wavered no more than those few seconds.  
  
“No. May would murder me for one thing, and I owe her and Peter plenty more than I could repay from your home.” A week, after all, could easily end up a month or more if the right things went wrong. And, though Loki would not mention it, he was not comfortable with the idea of being entirely alone around Stark. “I am sorry, but I thank you for the offer.”  
  
“Ouch, and here I thought our relationship had moved so far. I need to get a look at you though- once a week. My place or yours?”  
  
“I don’t have a place,” Loki pointed out, realizing as he said it that this was rather truer than he would have liked it to be. “I could go wherever you are. Peter, is that-?”  
  
“I’m not your babysitter. But uh, Aunt May might not be too happy. Normally people avoid the houses of guys who tried to kill them.”  
  
“I think,” Gwen cut in, almost severely, “that you can come by the coffee shop without your suit or anything else and talk to him for awhile and find out what you need from there. Okay?”  
  
“Nothing else? You sure? I mean, didn’t see one of those no shirt, no shoes, no service signs, but you can never be too careful.”  
  
“Hm, right, we don’t really want to see that. Clothes are okay.”  
  
Loki didn’t know whether to smile at this exchange or shake his head in disbelief, but opted for neither, seeing as had he been in any better health he knew he would have been joining in. Meeting Stark at the cafe? It was hardly a terrifying concept, especially if it would unlock any tell-tale hints of his past. Without that robotic suit he was hardly afraid, and his wariness would be little trouble in a crowded building. Peter didn’t look happy about even that, but Loki had to step out of this shadow somehow, and there was no use turning away any chance when it came. “I would be very grateful for that, thank you. Sorry for the inconvenience, I hope you don’t live too far off.”  
  
“I’m the superhero equivalent of a hermit, ‘cept I’m secluded on a cliff instead of some gross mountaintop. I’m used to it, I’ll manage.” Stark assured, pulling out his phone for a few brief moments of tapping before returning the machine to his pocket. “Saturdays, twelve, nice and easy to remember. I think I’ll see you then, I should get going before the kid figures out a way for looks to actually kill.”  
  
Stark jerked his thumb over his shoulder at Peter, who grimaced almost guiltily but hid it with a shrug. Neither he nor Gwen seemed ready to bid the man farewell politely, so it was Loki to speak the goodbyes as affably as could be managed, even though Stark didn’t return the favor beyond a studious look and a sort of absent-minded nod. Loki was less than bothered, and watched the man go with more relief than he would have expected. He knew very little of life in general, but he was beginning to believe his was a very unusual one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello ya'll! Yes, I am actually still alive, shocking as that may seem by now. I hope you'll all forgive the delay. Also hope this chapter answered the very reasonable question as to what the heck Tony thought he was doing in the last one, which a lot of people seemed to wonder. Also Loki is still a flirt.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki discovers that he does not like the press (or carpet), Peter has lost all control over his life, and Tony finally begins step one of his Very Bad Idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, I'm alive! Very, very late, but alive. So sorry for the delay, folks! The next chapter should be up by the end of the week.

Leaving the hospital was not such an ordeal as it had been in the past. Though Loki cringed to see the same nurses who had treated him with such belittling concern on his first visit, he was no longer afraid to speak to them, and stepping outside was only daunting for the look on May’s face as she and Peter arrived to help him home.

An unnecessary precaution, really, but the hospital, the police, and the family themselves had insisted on it, and Loki was not going to risk upsetting his hostess any more for the sake of a little pride. May had only been able to come by twice during his stay, and she had the second time delivered such a speech to the reporter unlucky enough to make the same stop that the poor man had gone home in tears. Formidable though she was, it was obvious to Loki that she was as worried as she was angry, and little wonder. He had seen photographs of a husband, noticed the way everything in their home was set for three, seen coats hanging in the closet that could not have fit Peter or his aunt. And he had seen the boy’s wounds, the scrapes and black eyes and cuts that he seemed to collect, traced over his body like a spider’s web of secret meetings and truths they all shared but would not acknowledge.

He knew that he was only one more person for this woman to protect and lose, and he was not proving himself to be any better at avoiding trouble than her nephew. Yet if there were some reason for that trouble, then Loki would not allow himself to avoid it- Stark claimed to know him, and he would sacrifice an hour of his time and a little caution if it meant discovering what the scar on his temple had taken from him.

He had not yet told any of his coworkers about his plan, despite knowing well that they would hardly miss Stark’s appearance come Saturday. He rarely worked afternoons on the weekend, and was anyway given liberty to time his own breaks as he pleased- if he was on the clock when the man arrived, he could alert Linette and step out. It would have been ideal that they not be aware anything had happened, but Loki knew he was hoping for too much even to consider that.

It would have been nice, however, if he could at least hide it from the press.

Unfortunately, his hopes for that were growing increasingly dimmer, and he had not yet even returned to work. He’d been ordered at least four days of rest, and on the third May interrupted her usual ritual of forcing upon him ridiculous amounts of honey-laden tea to inform him that Kim was waiting for him on the phone. After figuring out how the contraption worked- not entirely easy, with Peter waiting by to “assist”, which in his personal language apparently meant laughing copiously and providing next to no instruction- Loki had been informed that the public had somehow learned he would be returning soon.

“Okay, you know, I’m _pretty_ sure that Jack just got all grumpy about you getting all the attention and let it slip, but joke’s on him, ‘cause he’s basically just made you _more_ famous, and he’ll have to deal with cooking for all the weirdos who come in to gawk at you.” Her tone was flippant, and Loki imagined the dismissing wave of her hand that usually followed such comments. “But whatever; the point is, people are going to want to see you. I just thought I’d give you a heads up, at least. Linette despises reporters in all forms, so they won’t really be getting inside, but you should probably sneak in through the back, just in case. And make sure Peter walks with you, in case any other superheroes try to strangle you on the way.”

“I doubt even my luck could allow such a thing to occur twice in one week,” Loki assured on a sigh, throwing a glance toward Peter. “And I will see. He’s hardly had a moment to spend not protecting me of late.”

“Of late? Who even says that?”

“Shut up, Peter. But whatever the case I shall think of something, Kim. Trust me, I have no desire for another experience like that.” Loki’s hand came to his throat as it so often did lately, the bandages having grown long familiar to his touch. “Thank you for the warning. Are you all functioning without me?”

“Other than an alarming increase in Anna’s pouting levels? We’re doing just fine. At the very least, we’ll function until Thursday. You’ll be okay by then, right?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Then again Stark’s got more money than the US has debt, so if you feel like passing out go right ahead. I love filing company insurance claims against famous assholes.”

Loki only smiled, but said nothing to the joke. “I’ll let you get back to work, then. Enjoy dealing with customers without my refreshing wit to keep you company.”

Kim laughed- sharp, sarcastic, but familiar. “Yeah, I think I’ll survive. See you Thursday, Kaiser.”

“Loki."

“What?”

“My name. Stark said it. I... do not know if he is correct, but it sounded right.”

“Well, okay then. Guess it’s good enough- I mean, the way Anna goes on about you you may as well be a god. See you later, Loki.”

He repeated the farewell, and listened for the click that always preceded the end of a call, at least so far as his books had taught him, then returned the phone to its receiver, fumbling only momentarily. Peter barely gave him a moment to breathe, and then, “So, what was that about? I mean, I didn’t even know they _had_ this number. It’s kind of creepy actually. Are you being stalked by your gay coworker?”

“No. Nor by the straight ones either, before you get in your head to ask. Linette has a number on file, as you should know, being the one to give it to her. Kim probably just asked for it.” Loki hardly knew why he bothered to give the explanation, fully aware Peter had only asked in the first place because he had this ridiculous and endearing notion in mind that he was funny. “Apparently I can expect a bit of a crowd when I go back to work. People want to see Stark’s handiwork in the flesh.”

“Oh, yikes. They would not be thinking like that if they’d seen you right after he got at you. It was like something out of a horror film. Actually, you weren’t either a naked chick or dismembered beyond recognition, so never mind. Um... a bad or extremely violent medical show? No, CSI. I think CSI is closest.”

“Peter, I have never seen any movie, let alone whatever it is you’re talking about,” Loki pointed out, laughing at Peter’s seemingly thoughtless rambling. “Care to elaborate?”

“Um… lots of dead people, lots of dramatic and unrealistic dialogue, and lots of questions about who killed the dead people. So replace the people with your memories and we’re all good! Or, you know, almost you. That could’ve gotten… it was pretty scary.” There was a brief flicker of that weight beneath Peter’s jokes, and then his eyes brightened once more, seeming to fuel his smile. “Hey, you know, that picture of you in the hospital was in newspapers _everywhere_. Maybe someone’ll recognize you. And um-wait, that didn’t go so well last time. Someone who isn’t an uncharacteristically murderous superhero?”

“Such unrealistic expectations, Peter! They have to be at least a _little_ murderous, or where’s the fun?” Loki asked, sharing the smile and feeling as always that his face was not entirely used to the expression. Odd, as he had been doing it a lot since waking.

And yet it vanished quickly enough too, recalling how they had made a point to keep pictures of him to the hospital and themselves originally, for fear that whoever had given him that scar might return. He had more enemies than Stark to worry about, and he doubted most would be kind enough to attack him in broad daylight.

May’s call for dinner rang above his thoughts, and he turned toward Peter with a comfortable smile, both of them knowing full well that it would simply not do to let one of her meals grow cold. Aside from the rudeness, and her intolerance for such behavior, she was an outstanding cook, and Loki saw no need to let a little paranoia distract him from a bowl of her beef stew. She had been piling food on everyone’s plate but her own lately, taking as much as she liked but never seeming quite satisfied until both boys had eaten a substantially filling serving. Peter liked to complain with whining affection, but Loki only ever smiled and forced himself to eat as much as his throat could withstand, knowing for one that he needed the food, but mostly enjoying the concern.

He did not know why, but he got the feeling that what May offered the two of them was very special, and felt at the same time more foreign than anything else he had experienced, and achingly there, familiar but just out of reach. And wonderfully melodramatic as that was, it was only another thing Loki hated, and another reason he had to meet with Stark on Saturday. If things went poorly… well, Peter would be nearby, and that meant that ridiculous outfit and what came with it could not be far off. He didn’t particularly like the idea of having a child as his protector, nor the risk that he might get hurt, but he was hardly going to shun the offer.

And in any honesty, for his curiosity alone he would have gone with less security than that. Though this time, he would not be taking his eyes of Stark for an instant, whether he held that briefcase or not.

 

***

The thing about normality was that it faded into the background. You couldn’t explain something you had simply always _known_ , and Peter had forgotten that, in taking them for granted, people had dreams, often woke without remembering or thinking about them, and at other times were left with the remnants of images.

Or no, not really, he had not forgotten the act itself, but rather that Loki, whose information came mostly from fiction, probably assumed they were some sort of common fantasy element that writers liked to indulge in for drama’s sake, or at the least only came with amnesia-inducing wounds and couldn’t exactly be called normal. In the maelstrom that was his mind lately, Loki’s nighttime hallucinations occupied a pretty small space.

On Saturday morning, a blessing for any high school student whose free time was not at the mercy of his AP history teacher’s weekend lectures, he woke up, as usual, around six in the morning. Not so usual, however, he did not burrow under his covers and hide from consciousness for another half hour, but bolted to his feet as if someone had let off a gun next to his ear. Considering how things had been day one, Peter thought he’d gotten pretty good at dealing with his senses, but there were still times when his ears picked up on something and his mind just could not register that it could be that loud and not close.

Because it had sounded like something had been growling about an inch from his head, and he’d give a medal to anyone who didn’t wake up to that and freak out at least a little.

He wasn’t sure at what point the realization came that he had lost all control of his life, but it was probably around the time he calmed himself with the sad truth that this was very easily explained by Loki’s presence across the hall. It apparently wasn’t enough that he had developed arachnid superpowers, life had to throw him the weirdness of having a snarling amnesiac sleeping in the spare room.

He got up as quietly as he could, which was easy after all the years spent trying to avoid waking Aunt May, and threw on something more decent than a pair of boxers before hurrying out of the room. Creepily enough the growling sound had not stopped for more than a second at a time, and was pretty loud by the time Peter made it to Loki’s door. He knocked to no avail, spent a minute or two preparing himself to seem like a creep, then slipped into the room, clicking the door shut so Aunt May wouldn’t be woken in the same way he had.

He was sneaking into a guy’s room in the early hours of the morning, wearing boxers and a t-shirt. At least it was just Loki, he probably didn’t know enough for this explanation to get awkward.

His back was to Peter, and he was shaking, but in a way which was less scared and more… creepy. “Uh, Loki? You’re being kind of freaky here. You okay?” The shaking stopped, but Loki did not reply, and so Peter went to the tip of his toes, trying to get a glimpse at the man’s expression, but it didn’t prove exactly effective.

He knew better than to just reach out and grab him by the shoulder, so he shuffled instead around the bed, hoping to gauge Loki’s expression in sleep and instead letting out a rather unmanly squawk when he found the man’s eyes open. Loki had apparently been staring almost fiercely at the wall, and now looked up at Peter, expression unchanged and harsh. “He was different.”

“Uh…” Okay, there wasn’t much more eloquent than that for Peter to possibly say, so he left off there, wondering if this was weird enough to merit a call to the hospital.

“Than the rest of them. He was different.”  Loki looked away on the words, muttering the first portion to himself and then snapping his gaze back to Peter, jaw tight with frustration. “Why?”

“Who was different, Loki?” Peter asked, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible.

“Stark.”

Well, that made sense. Loki hadn’t met too many people, most of them women, and Stark really did stand out… but he had a feeling it went beyond that. “How was he different?”

“I… I do not know.” Loki frowned, and his anger became confusion, his glare now a look of internally-faced concern. “But he was! I am… sure of it.”

“Hey, don’t worry, I believe you. Do you, uh… do you know who he was different from?” He was expecting another baffled negative, but Loki’s face perked up somewhat and he nodded, looking viciously pleased with himself.

“His friends, from all that trouble in Manhattan. The ones you speak so highly of.”

“Y-you know them?” The only one who had been at the worksite the day Loki had come with them was Stark, and as far as Peter could imagine no other Avenger had dropped by his daily life, either. Of course, there was an explanation available that kept his confusion at bay, but could do nothing to ward away a sense of dread. Never mind that he might have gained a flash of memory; the more Loki fit in with what Stark had expected from him, the more likely it was that he was exactly who the man had thought he was.

And judging by his reaction upon seeing him, that person was not somebody Loki wanted to be.

“No. But… I saw them.” Again, Loki’s gaze drifted downward, his attention shifting seemingly toward himself, eyebrows drawn together as if in worry. “I… was I here a few minutes ago?”

“Yeah, physically. You were dreaming- you know what that is, right?” Loki nodded, looking sleepy and confused but no less manic, so Peter hastened all the more to assure him. “Right, so you didn’t actually see anybody. You’re fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. Plus, I think you might still be kind of asleep right now.” Largely because the man was now glaring at the floor as if he were entirely alone with it, and about to enact some weird carpet-based vengeance. “Just lay down and, uh, get some rest. Big meeting today with the guy who tried to kill you.”

“Right. I have been looking forward to that.” The man- though Peter’s faith that he was just that was starting to weaken- lay back, head against the pillow, but continued simply to stare at the ceiling, eyes open.

He looked so distracted that for a moment Peter genuinely debated waiting around to make sure he didn’t have some kind of psychotic breakdown. Then again, he was feeling twice as creepy as he liked already, so he made his quick and awkward escape from the room. He had three hours of history to give his mind over to, he could worry about Loki after that. And then move on to a few hours of patrol, criminal baiting, and finally whatever homework he could squeeze into the night.

Yeah, no big deal.

 

***

As had been predicted, much of the cafe’s business over the next few days came from public more curious about Loki than the food. He had received multiple attempts at informal interviews, a few moments of unkind praise, and had customers dissolve into shouting fits, though none could blame him on any basis beyond his angering of Stark. It was difficult to work when you were the sole focus of a few dozen people’s investigative indulgence, but his hours were short, and often as not he had been kept to bringing orders upstairs, where the seating was too minimal to allow any excessive crowding or harassment.

Whatever the case, it was nice, on Saturday, to find that the hordes had thinned their numbers to an almost reasonable amount, quite a percentage of which consisted of usual customers who had long since given up their interest in that bit of gossip. Loki did not know why, or perhaps how, the multitude had lost their interest, but he had seen stranger things and was happy enough to accept the one that worked in his favor.

At least until Stark walked through the door, two minutes to noon, hands in his pockets and not an ounce of concern in his expression. Loki, leaning over the counter to deliver word of an order, jumped to attention upon catching sight of him in the fridge’s reflection, blocking Anna’s view of the new arrival as effectively as he could manage. “Loki? What-”

“Hm? No, nothing. Do not worry. Just a minute. Linette, I’m going on my break! I might be a little while. Is that okay?” Loki called out, stepping to the side to prevent Anna’s attempts to pear past him, alternating between trying to assure her there was no need and peeking past her toward the owner.

She was deep in argument with someone on the phone, and only gave him a slightly bemused look before waving, flustered, for him to go on as he liked. The cafe was nearly empty, and Loki’s services would not be missed for an hour or so- but there were people enough that Stark, who had stopped to pick up a menu with infuriating casualness, was beginning to attract quite a bit of attention and disbelief from the clientele.Loki could not risk anyone stirring up a scene, and though he knew the man’s weekly visits could hardly go unnoticed for long, he did not want them revealed so soon.

“Thank you!” He reached out for Anna’s shoulders, halting her newest attempts, and met her unimpressed look with a slightly flustered smile. “Yes, I am being weird, I apologize. Bear with it awhile longer?”

“You’re lucky I like you.”

“So I am. Hold the fort a moment, I’ll be back.” She seemed momentarily hopeful about something, but Loki’s mind was eighty percent devoted to Stark even as he spoke with her, and so he turned and hurried away without addressing the problem.

His footsteps caused Stark to turn, smiling and lifting a menu, seemingly pleased by his approach. “Hey, there we go. Y’know, I never got my coffee from last time, seems pretty poor customer- whoa, hey, I was looking at that.”

Loki, fully aware he was only making things more obvious, merely divested Stark of the menu and turned the man around by his shoulders, hurrying him toward the door even as he finished speaking. “Stop talking. What do you think you are doing?” He hissed as soon as they were outside, away from attentive and unwanted ears. “How am I supposed to keep you unseen if you barge in there like this?”

The man, surprisingly unperturbed by his ejection from the cafe, merely quirked an eyebrow. “What am I, the grungy prom date mom and dad can’t know about? ‘Cause let me tell you, subtle that was not."

“No! But… well, I am sorry, but I’m going to be blunt. Linette would sooner throw you in the fryer than serve you a drink, and you will fare no better with any of the other employees.” Except Jack, of course, but he was hardly a concern. Loki felt a little embarrassed for his flustered behaviour, but he did not want this to become any more problematic than it had to be, nor did he want his friends to worry. Peter and Gwen were two people more than he wished had to bear that burden, though luckily neither was present- what had held them up, exactly, he could not spare the time to wonder. “You cannot come inside the building. There are tables here and nobody should mind if we make use of them.”

“Seems a bit public, don’t you think?” Jeez, how thick did Loki have to lay on the ‘clueless amnesiac’ act before he was satisfied? Tony had more doubts than he’d have liked, but he still couldn’t quite believe the guy’s reasoning. If he hadn’t had SHIELD set them up with a little privacy, the place probably would have been mobbed with reporters by now. “Hey, your ground, we’ll play your rules. So, can I sit here? Not gonna whisk me away again, are you?”

And at that Loki actually cast his eyes downward in apparent apology, which was wrong in ways Tony could not even begin to comprehend. “Of course not. I am sorry, sit where you like. Would you like anything to eat? If you will wait, I can go and order for you.”

“Nah, I’m good.” The chairs, woven metal, were horribly uncomfortable and the table wobbly, so that any degree of authority Tony might have allowed himself vanished the moment he folded his arms over the table and felt it tilt toward him with a creek, flopping listlessly back as soon as he shifted his weight. Wonderful. Loki, a moment later, sat across from him, hands resting politely in his lap. “So, we’ve got a bit of a problem here.”

“What may that be?”

“I have a lot of questions I’d like to ask you, but you could be lying through your teeth for all of ‘em. So, step number one, you’re going to put this on.” He had promised nothing but himself and his clothes, but Tony fished nonetheless through his pockets to withdraw a small device, about the size of a slightly chubby quarter. He held it out and, with some hesitance, Loki took it from his palm, holding it gingery between two fingers.

“How do I do that?”

“Just press it to your temple. The pretty one.”

Loki complied, moving with a sort of distracted fascination. “What it is?”

“Lie detector. Sort of. See, those things aren’t exactly accurate, and genius though I am, if you are who I think you are, I can’t be sure it’s even checking for the right brain waves. But it’s a start.” It transmitted directly to his phone, which Tony now withdrew and arranged so that it leaned against the napkin holder, screen visible to him but blocked from Loki’s view. Everything seemed normal so far, but the chip was scanning for more than just lies, and the more reactions he could get the better. “Long story short, it lets me look in your head. Ideally you’d have a few more elsewhere, but we’ll make due.”

“Very well. What is it you wished to ask me?” Loki wondered, and Tony watched the screen with passive interest. He could not, unfortunately, sense genuine curiosity with his invention, but it was nice to hope.

Because really, despite his interest in the truth of this, and the fascination he had felt toward Loki even at his most crazy, Tony did not want to be here. He had his bracelets, but his suits were miles away, SHIELD was on-call but not deployed, and he was… scared. It was a lot easier to dismiss the threat a psychotic Norse god offered when you had a much less psychotic Norse god on your side; not to mention the Hulk. Looking at Loki meant looking at the Chitauri and right through that black hole, until it took everything out of him just to _breathe_.

Tony was nothing if not stubborn, however, and he didn’t let an ounce of that reach his expression. It was easier acting calm in front of Loki himself than Fury, somehow. “What’s your name?”

“You know better than I do.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Loki.” The god hesitated, and Tony, who had no idea what his full name even was, tried to look anticipatory, like he had any way of confirming the next word. “There is more, but I do not know it. Loki is all I have. I was Kaiser before, after the hospital.”

And Tony still could not believe that anybody in their right mind had decided to name this piece of work ‘Emperor’. “Do you know how we found out about you?”

“No. Who is ‘we’?”

“Friends of mine, don’t worry about it yet. Sorry to tell you pal, but there’s a group of highly trained professionals who spent an hour or two studying a picture of you mostly naked. What makes you think they could be wrong after that?”

Loki seemed pretty perturbed by the knowledge that government agents were so much more familiar with his body than he had probably ever wanted them to be, but he kept, with surprising politeness, to the matter at hand. “I- Do not, really. I am not familiar with such things. It is possible this man you mistake me for simply looks a lot like me. Do you have pictures of him like that?”

“We don’t exactly go around collecting them, nope.”

“Well, as I recall, my face was not too clear in Anna’s photograph. It is possible your men jumped to a conclusion.”

Fair point, as Tony and many others had already considered, but it was worth getting Loki’s personal view. “Uh-huh. What do you know about that name of yours?”

He seemed to perk up at that- obvious both in his expression and what the phone showed. “Well, there is a Scandinavian deity to whom it is often attributed, and I suspect I was named after him. Though… I do not imagine it is very common.”

“Not exactly. Well, not outside of poorly researched fantasy novels, anyway.” Better not introduce this guy to any of those- if he _was_ Loki and _had_ lost his memory, Tony didn’t want to give him any ideas. “Do you remember anything? Whatever it is, let me have it.”

“Words. Well, in a sense. I know them as I see or hear them, but I cannot recall something if I am attempting to say it myself. The reading helped. I remember how to walk, and do such things as that. I feel as though I may have been rather lonely, for living with Peter and his Aunt feels very strange, even comparatively.” Loki’s mouth remained poised for words a few moments after they have ended, a look of hesitancy replacing his confidence, and Tony waved impatiently for him to continue. “I might remember a few things. From... dreams. But I cannot say if those come from what I have seen since waking, or from before.”

“All right. No family, friends, long lost dogs?”

“Not that I know.”

It must have been convenient, having a nasty scar like that. A simple ‘I don’t know’ was all Tony could get for most of what he asked, and neither Loki’s tone nor the device gave him any reason to doubt. Infuriating as it was, he was either a very good actor, not human, or honest. And, considering the situation, it was as likely as not that he was all of the above at once.

A few people wandering past the cafe had slowed to gawk, and Tony doubted they had much time before one of Loki’s coworkers got fed up and came out to check what was going on. “Okay. Well, do you at least know who I thought you were?”

“I would like to.”

And damn, did Loki look eager. Tony found it almost disturbing, knowing the answer, but in a way could not blame him. If hearing words he’d known told him there meaning, maybe he believed hearing about specific acts of his would jog something too. “You’ve been to Manhattan, haven’t you?”

“Yes. I saw you there- and I think you saw me.”

“Yup. That’s why I got SHIELD’s security looking for you.” They never would have paid half a mind to that picture otherwise, even if they were constantly scanning for sightings of supervillains. Watch on Loki had been rather lax, seeing as nobody had even managed to contact Asgard, let alone reach or escape it, since his departure. “None of that sparked anything? No happy memories in all those destroyed buildings? Didn’t you get all warm, fuzzy, and nostalgic when you saw the graves? Nothing?”

Loki stared at him with an expression of such pain that Tony nearly believed it, the maybe-god’s words seemingly abandoning him in a flash of shock. “You- you think I did that? Are you mad? Look at me. I could hardly destroy an entire city alone.”

“Not alone. The Chitauri gave you a few thousand hive-minded hands, no big deal. Remember that word?” He may have been being cruel, distress obvious in every outlet he had to read it, but he didn’t bother to back down. “Looks like it.”

“I have heard it before,” Loki admitted, after a slightly elongated silence, his voice softer than it had been. “I must have. When my headaches grow bad, I feel… something. That sounds correct.”

“They’re an alien species, not an illness.”

“I know. And they are cruel. I want nothing to do with them, and I assure you that whatever interaction we may have had together was not pleasant. I can tell you nothing more.” Loki spoke with a sudden sharpness, more defensive than Tony had seen him yet, even at the hospital visit, and, with a great deal of effort, he swallowed down his retorts.

This Loki definitely looked like the one Tony knew, but nothing piled up in quite the right way. It seemed almost as possible that he was one of the god’s victims, maybe someone who had been stuck with a nasty spell during the attack that changed his appearance, wiped his mind, something to give the real him an easier time in fleeing Asgard while everyone distracted themselves with this guy. Far fetched as it was, Tony allowed himself to entertain the idea as a background thought, at least until they could get a real idea of all this. Fury was flying Jane Foster in for consultation in two days, and whatever she could clarify would be a hell of a lot more concrete than any of this.

“Fine. No more about them. But you know, if you _are_ the same guy, what’re you going to do about it?"

“I suspect I would be arrested, yes?” Loki shifted nervously in his seat, eye no longer quite meeting Tony’s. “Or killed, considering your original response. I do not know the standard procedure for punishing one who cannot recall the crime.”

“Well, it’s not exactly a ‘standard’ situation. Jeez, could you just- stop with the puppy eyes, okay? Right now, we’re finding out who you are, that’s step one.”

“I thought step one was the chip?”

“Okay, step three. Whatever. Stop being technical, that’s my job. Speaking of, you can take that off, now,” Tony said. He had gathered as much as he could theoretically make use of, for the time being, and more than he had really expected. These meetings were never going to be all too productive, and their point wasn’t to produce direct results. He had to be happy with what he got, and focused on what was made available.

Loki obediently removed and offered up the chip, which Tony pocketed once more, along with his phone. “You can keep going, ya know.”

“I’m sorry?”

“If I’m right. About what you would do.”

“Ah. I suppose you mean personally?” Loki gave a smile closer to a grimace, and shrugged. “I do not want you to be right. I enjoyed helping those people, and it is difficult to think I could be the cause of their grief. But I do not wish to be forced to suffer in atonement for something I have no recollection of, either. Make no mistake that I feel terribly that there is even cause to consider I am to blame, but I would rather give aid than seek forgiveness with my own pain.”

Stark had been remarkably unaffected by his words during their little chat, and Loki had begun to find it unnerving, considering the weight they had left on him. He did not know what he had expected to come from this, but the heaviness in his stomach was far from welcome, and Stark’s disinterested look even more so. With that admission, however, something changed in his expression, and Loki, meeting his eye, found he was not quite so put off by what he saw there. Curious, perhaps, but there was something familiar in the look that put to rest a few fears of his own just as it seemed to stir them up in Stark.

The man began another question, but had gone through no more than the first few words before Loki heard his name, if his it really was, called from nearby, and turned to see Peter making his hurried approach. Gwen was not with him, and he could tell even from this distance that the boy was more a mess than would have been acceptable for his Saturday course, but before he could rise and voice his concern Stark was on his feet, and Loki could not be sure which to address first.

“I’d rather not deal with boy wonder right now, so let’s wrap this up. I’ll be back next Saturday, but you’re going to call before then,” he informed, scribbling a number down on a napkin and sliding it toward Loki. “And you better not forget, I’ll waste away in longing before then.”

“Do not worry, Stark, I will not deprive you of my voice for long,” Loki assured, the sarcasm coming easily now that Peter was about there, and he was not alone with this… unorthodox man. He folded the napkin neatly and slipped it into his pocket, ignoring the incredulous look his meticulous manner earned him. “What am I calling for?”

“An appointment. I’m setting you up with a neurologist, and a pretty girl who will not, sadly for you, be your date. Drag your security teenager if you must,” Stark conceded, meeting Peter’s eye with no visible shame as the boy pouted in response, his narrowed eyes a little more genuine than they may normally have been. “Oh, and I’m taking your blood. From the hospital, they’ve already got it. Thought I’d let you know, even though you can’t really stop me, legalities aside. Just to be polite.”

“You are the pinnacle of good breeding, I thank you.”

“That is so wrong, coming from you. Enjoy your food for thought and the number, not many get either from me. And good luck.”

Stark nodded, hands very pointedly shoved within his pockets, and with no further adieu turned down the street and was soon gone from sight. Peter waited a few moments beyond this, then turned to face Loki, who was staring nervously after him. The man flinched, and pressed a hand quickly against his uninjured temple, eyes tight in a flash of pain, but simply continued to stare once that had, seemingly, faded, hand resting where it was.

“Are you okay?” The headaches were nothing new, and Peter didn’t think for a second he needed to confirm that they were not the point of his question. By the look on Loki’s face- uncertain, maybe scared, definitely a little sad- he was right.

“I… not really. I will be. Come on, I have taken too long already. Come inside, I won’t be much later,” Loki assured, his voice a smooth but not entirely convincing transition from shaken to bright and upbeat. He smiled, and shrugged, and Peter did the same in reply, following him into the cafe with the silent promise of an explanation to come.

A block away, meanwhile, Tony was just climbing into his car, working rapidly over his phone in the background of every action, firing data back and forth between SHIELD and his own private servers- some of it even with their knowledge. He was in the middle both of both an intersection and an email when his typing was interrupted with the alerting fanfare of a text-message, and in his momentary envelopment of frustration upon reading nearly stopped short in the middle of both.

Whoever had given Capsicle access to a cellphone was public enemy number one in Tony’s private books- or number two, depending on the results of his inquiries- and it was either a miracle or a horrible design flaw that the man had discovered how to use it. Months, and he had only sent out one message, a few days after New York, to let them know he was settled, and wondering if they all were as well.

Then nothing, not even a word from Fury, who had complained often enough about every other absence when one of the team went missing. And now?

_Stark, it’s Rogers. I’ll be arriving in New York ETA 5 hours. We need to talk, bring the others if you like. How about the park?_

Tony’s groan was enough to merit a clipped alert from JARVIS, suggesting that he please refrain from throwing the phone through any windows, and not for simple sarcasm’s sake. He should have been excited, really, that another teammate was rolling in, given the circumstances, but it was with a feeling of deep annoyance that he gave the verbal command to send an affirmative. Cap was undeniably badass, regardless of the circus-freak uniform, and so very moral, and probably already had some idealistic plan for working the truth or memory out of this Loki-or-maybe-not-Loki.

But right now, Tony saw him as just another problem to add to the list, imagining the many ways he could ruin everything ith that propaganda-poster mentality of his. Still worse, he was imagining the lecture that article and Loki’s bruises was going to earn him, and hating the prospect all the more for knowing he deserved exactly what he was going to get.

As if things weren’t complicated enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this was an odd place to stop (and for all the weird moments of anst). It was either break off now, have a weird cliffhanger, or wait awhile and post a chapter twice as long as this. Instead, I'll give y'all another hopefully within the week.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Steve attempt to have a civilized conversation, and things go just as poorly as everyone expects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yaaaay new chapter! Shorter, but sooner. This was going to be tacked on to the last one, but I thought it worked by itself as well.

Rogers was almost exactly as the worst Tony remembered of him- impeccably dressed in clothes his grandfather would have turned his nose up at, a dufflebag in army-green swung over his shoulder, and his walk confident bordering on arrogance. Which, really, he had no business complaining about, but it was impossible _not_ to when apparently every other portion of the human race was so blinded with stardom that they were gawking in awe rather than disgust. A too-strong word for what even Tony was feeling, but it was nice to imagine.

Of course, he could only imagine something similar- and infinitely more polite- was running through the Captain’s head, considering the amalgamation of two Avengers had created quite the crowd, and Tony had at least as many people gaping at him. They had reached a mutual trust and respect after the battle of New York, but they liked each other little to no better than they had before, even if their shouting match on the helicarrier had proved to be a one-time event. So far.

“Stark.” Rogers certainly _sounded_ pleased enough to see him, and managed a smile that even Tony had to admit was winning as he came forward, hand extended. With some internal gagging, he took it, trying to meet the man’s grip with as much strength of his own as could be mustered. “Thanks for meeting me here. Getting a taxi in New York hasn’t gotten any easier since my time.”

“You’d be surprised how well you can manage after saving the world.” Tony was tempted to ask why he hadn’t come zooming in on his motorcycle of wonders, but doubted he cared about the reason. “I’m parked across the street and we’ve got about five minutes before this place is mobbed with so many reporters even you won’t be able to move, so let’s get going.”

Rogers nodded, and fell into step beside Tony as if they were in some sort of formation. He was, no doubt, reading too far into it, but that didn’t stop him from rolling his eyes; an action which went noticed, undoubtedly, but politely (translate: reluctantly) ignored. “Have you picked a place, or are we just going for the park?”

“Park’s a bit too public, Cap. Thought we’d be better off in my tower, or at least a restaurant.” Still, he’d rather nobody get shots of the two of them having any sort of public meeting, whether they were overheard or not. “People see us getting too formal, they’re going to expect there’s another big bad running around, and I’ve got enough PR nightmares to deal with as it is. So let’s do these normal folks of the city a favor and let them reserve their panic for a more appropriate time.”

“I understand the need for discretion, but is it wise to keep things so secretive? I saw the newspaper, Stark. That was definitely Loki. Now I don’t think it’ll do any good to tell people who he is, but if something’s happening people need the chance to prepare.”

“Nothing’s happening, Cap. Not that we know of. And so long as _we’re_ in the dark, _they’re_ in the dark. Let’s keep the L-word to ourselves until we’re somewhere a little more private. And don’t worry, I meant neither ‘Love’ nor ‘Lesbian’, so your delicate forties mentality need not fear.”

Tony was keeping his eyes and walk forward, trying to hurry along without looking like he was in any rush, and meanwhile Rogers was keeping pace not only free of strain, but with a heavy bag over the shoulder and his gaze fixed on Tony. “Another reference, I’m guessing? Look I’m not sure what movie you’re talking about now, but if you’re implying that I’m homophobic-”

“After seeing you in that Star-Spangled glory? Yeah, no worries about that.”

“And now you’re trying to somehow taunt me by making suggestions about my sexuality. That’s more a misdirection than an insult, and for the record my clothes have nothing to do with-”

“Oh god it’s like talking to a library. Lighten up, Rogers. I _am_ insulting you, but more for the whole cultural pariah thing. For the record, “Scott Pilgrim versus the World”, watch it when you figure out how a TV works,” Tony retorted, still keeping his onward treck in favor of meeting the other man’s eye.

He had hoped that after everything he would find it easier to get along with the Captain, that the bonding experience of saving the world and each other’s lives would be enough to override Howard’s praise. Unsurprisingly, however, the man was proving just _too_ annoying to tolerate without at least a little sarcasm- and proving as well to to be too uptight to accept that without putting on his ‘disapproving adult’ face and making a deal of things. Publicly.

“I know how to work a television.” Rogers grimaced and passed a hand over his face, as though dealing politely with Tony was taking more of an effort than he’d extended in fighting the Nazis. “Look, I didn’t come here to do this again. I’ll take your judgment in where to go, let’s just get on the way.”

“Fine. Does Fury know you’re here?”

“Not yet. I wanted to talk with you before SHIELD got involved. I’d like to see the rest of the team as well, but that can wait.”

So small graces _did_ exist. Tony shut his eyes in a moment of minimal relief and exasperation, hidden thankfully behind his sunglasses. “Hey, what’re your thoughts on Italian food?”

“I grew up in New York.”

“Guessing that mean’s no Olive Garden, then?”

“What?”

“It’s a restaurant. Really phony Italian food, there’s this joke about it.. You know what, let’s just- come on.”

Rogers seemed more than happy to comply, and their less than friendly chatter was put on a blissful hold until they finally broke free of the public clamor and made it to Tony’s car. There was no Happy waiting by, not today, and he slipped behind the wheel himself, ignoring Rogers’ look of obvious apprehension. He popped the trunk but didn’t bother to do anything beyond that, knowing it would be a cold day in the pre-serum nineteen forties before Rogers needed _his_ help with a bag.

When the ‘door open’ warning was off and Rogers’ seatbelt safely buckled- because he _definitely_ needed one, right?- Tony kicked into gear and swerved off cutting off the nearest car a little more closely than he might have done had he been alone in the car. Rogers tightened his jaw, but kept remarkably quiet… at least on that front. Tony didn’t look over (even he was not going to risk that in airport-exit traffic) but at the intake of breath beside him, presumably in preparation, he hurried to speak.

“Don’t. Listen, I’ve heard the lecture already. Attacking Loki in public was excessive and you, and I, and apparently the entire world know that. I’m used to bad press, but I’ve gotta tell you, the repetitive lecture thing’s getting older than you at this point,” Tony interrupted, lifting one hand from the wheel to hold out in front of Rogers, for an effect which made him more uncomfortable than anything. He went back to a two-hand grasp for both their sakes, but did not distract from his words. “I’m dealing with it. In a mostly-legal fashion. I’ve given the press releases, made the apologies, and though I’m probably banned from that coffee shop for life, which means nothing considering I’ll be going anyway, I am handling this PR nightmare. Or, okay, it’s mostly Pepper, but my name goes in the articles.”

“Stark.” Tony did not go for the dramatic word-halt-and-head-turn that Hollywood would have demanded, considering he was busy merging onto a freeway, but he did pause, his own jaw a little tense, to give Rogers time to speak.

And for a moment he filled that space instead with silence, eventually broken by a slightly resigned sigh as he shifted in his seat, angling a little more towards Stark so the man might be able to catch at least a glimpse of his expression peripherally. “Can you promise me that you were certain Loki was trying to cause something?”

“I’m not even certain that _is_ Loki.”

“That’s not what I mean. When you put on your suit, when you attacked him, were you sure that you were arresting Loki before he could do any harm?”

There was a long and not entirely comfortable pause, and a nod. “Yeah. One hundred percent. It was mostly driven by mild panic and the lack of a better explanation, but yup. I wouldn’t have attacked him if I weren’t.”

Considering Stark’s expectation had been that Steve’s concerns would be solely for the issues of public affairs, he frowned with some suspicion at the assurance, but couldn’t hear enough doubt in the man’s voice to justify retaining it. “Good.”

“Wait, that’s _it_?” Now Stark did turn to him, with a suddenness that nearly pulled the car out of its lane. “Are you kidding me with this? You think I would have attacked a waiter just for the fun of it? I know you like to think I’m Satan’s more-handsome and equally-evil twin brother, but I do _not_ kill civilians,” he snapped, taking his anger out on the steering wheel with a rough turn, jarring Steve against the seat belt.

It was uncomfortable, but far from painful, and Steve didn’t spare the movement more than a thought. “That wasn’t my point, Stark, and you know it.” Or did he? It was definitely interesting that he had jumped so defensively and so quickly, but it was neither his job nor his place to start making guesses as to why. “I wasn’t asking about whether or not you thought that was Loki. I wanted to make sure you thought he was dangerous at the time.”

“Putting aside the very amusing idea of a _not_ dangerous Loki, are you actually worried? About him?” Stark demanded, seemingly incredulous, as he finally righted the car down a lane now mostly empty, all others having sensibly fled to adjacent lanes.

“Yes.” Steve knew that if Hawkeye had been in the car with them, he’d likely have had an arrow and a few barbed words aimed his way before the word was done, but he figured that of all of them, Stark would get his point the most. And he was not disappointed, the man merely waiting, with some obvious impatience, for him to elaborate. “For one thing, let’s not forget that Loki is under Asgard’s jurisdiction. As much as the people of Earth deserve a hand in his punishment, we promised we wouldn’t get one unless we felt like risking a cross-dimensional war.”

“They’re realms, technically, not dimensions, so-”

“Don’t. If Loki escaped, as you apparently thought he had, then you had plenty of reason to go at him. But if this was part of his punishment, then we have to be careful how we interfere, and not just because of Odin’s temper. If that is Loki, he’s obviously weakened, and I wanted to be sure you didn’t know that before you went after and almost killed a guy who had no way of defending himself.”

“Yeah, like I was supposed to expect the guy who could take a bashing from the Hulk and barely bat an eye would be bothered by my suits,” Stark retorted in defense, likely rolling his eyes behind those glasses. “Something’s up with him. You think it’s- what? His punishment? All signs point to him not even knowing his own _name_. Last I checked, amnesia wasn’t exactly an effective form of correction. For one thing, he seems to be living pretty large for a guy who’s supposed to be locked up in a medieval jail cell.”

“Yeah, I read about that, the article loved to play it up. I also saw the scar.” Loki had been so badly damaged in the photo that Steve had almost failed to recognize him, even after reading and reviewing the article three or four times. It hadn’t made much sense- but he’d had a few days and a very long plane ride to think about it, and he had a few suspicions at the very least. “You never talked to Thor while he was still here, did you?  It was in his file anyway, but he told me that when he came to earth last, he was mortal.”

“Big daddy Odin wasn’t too happy with him and put his powers in the corner for time-out. You think he gave the same treatment to Loki? And what, he just knocked his head conveniently on the most convenient park statue afterward?” Starl’s tone was no more polite than usual, but a hand came up and pulled the sunglasses away, folding them shut and tossing them into the backseat. “Yeah, okay, as plausible as anything else I’ve got. But what kind of punishment is that? Letting him go completely free?”

“You saw how arrogant he was; forcing him to be human would take him down a peg or two. He thought he deserved to be the master of our entire race, making him a part of it would almost be fitting.” And it seemed like just the sort of poetic justice the gods were always fond of in those old stories. Still… “Humiliating him wouldn’t be enough, but it wouldn’t have to be. If he hadn’t been hospitalized he would have no money, no food, no shelter. He would be living in the streets, and he couldn’t risk anything that would draw attention to him in case we found him again. Without papers or decent clothes he couldn’t get a job very easily, and until he did he’d be begging from humans, or committing petty theft just to eat.”

“All of which he would be doing anyway if he managed to break out of jail. He probably would find that a hell of alot better than sitting in a dungeon. I think you’re right about the mortal thing, if that is actually Loki, but I’m guessing he was made like that before being shoved in prison. Then he came running to earth, and knocked his head on the way,” he suggested, though it came out sounding as more of a retort.

“Then Thor would have come down to warn us, and Loki would be back in a cell already. It’s more likely that this is exactly what Odin intended.”

“What? Letting him off with a slap on the wrist? That’s bullshit and you know it, Captain.”

“Calm down, Stark. We don’t know anything yet, we’re talking possibilities, not facts.”

The man tightened his grip on the wheel, but didn’t argue the possibility any further. Aside from the color of his hair, and maybe the working of his jaw when he was annoyed, there was nothing in Stark to connect him with Howard. And maybe that wasn’t the problem so much as that Steve kept trying to find it. “Are you alright?”

“Just peachy. I just get- there’s this thing about Loki, doesn’t sit too well with me. Fine talking to him, he’s not really _like_ him, but if that’s Loki, and this isn’t some sort of accident, then I’d like to have a few words with Odin about what constitutes _punishment._ ”

“Stark, we don’t know anything for sure yet. I understand you want to make sure Loki gets what he deserves, but I also know you don’t want to do anything like you already have.” Or at least he hoped not. Killing was one thing- they had all done it, would do it again whenever necessary, and admittedly sometimes when it wasn’t. But choking or beating somebody who couldn’t fight back wasn’t an idea that sat well with him, at least.

And apparently not Stark either, as he grimaced and let out a sigh, his shoulders slumping somewhat. “You know, you really know how to lay it on thick, don’t you?”

“So I’ve been told.”

They were nearing their exit, as far as he remembered it, and Stark pulled them into the right-most lane as it approached, hardly slowing down on the off-ramp. “Look, I don’t really do the heartfelt chat thing, and I don’t vent. So if you flew down here to get a psycho-analysis either on me or Loki, you’re out of luck. I’ll tell you everything that’s happened, so long as you drop it with the guilt, and don’t read into anything until I’m done.”

Now _that_ did sound like Howard, and Steve had to smile, which seemed to take Stark by surprise. “That sounds good to me. Start with when you first saw him.”

“That would actually be a lot earlier than Fury knows, so I’d thank you to shut up about the first two minutes of what I’m going to tell you, because I had enough trouble bribing the security team into keeping quiet, and I don’t want the hissy fit when our one-eyed-wonder finds out a supervillain got into his ‘secure’ restoration site.”

***

It took Stark the rest of the trip to the tower to describe everything that had happened thus far, minus a couple of intermissions to make and then pick up an order at Maggianos. Steve listened carefully, interjecting only when he thought something had been forgotten, skimmed over, or entirely omitted. This wasn’t all too common, surprisingly- he was extremely detailed, which, probably because of his usually flippant speech, had come as something of a surprise. Still, despite how rarely he could actually be seen doing work, Stark owned a business, which meant giving speeches to investors, partners, and CEOs. And he was a creator, an inventor, and you couldn’t build a working robot suit without the ability to focus, and micromanage.

Even knowing that, it was still something of a surprise to hear the guy who exhibited selective hearing to the highest degree proving that he was as aware of the barista behind the counter as he was of his own ego.

By the end of it, Steve had a fairly complete idea of what Stark, at least, knew and had experienced of the ‘Loki situation’, as he had rather aptly put it. They were seated at the table of a mostly in-tact kitchen (the entire tower was still undergoing repairs, and while the first few floors were habitable they weren’t exactly the pinnacles of luxury that Stark had originally envisioned), a plastic dish of chicken parmesan set for each of them, though neither had taken more than a few bites so far.

“I’m hoping it’ll all be a bit clearer when Foster gets in, but I’m taking care of things myself for now. That neurologist he’ll be seeing is the best SHIELD has to offer- so he probably sucks but whatever, he’ll be all creepy and discreet for us,” Tony assured, stabbing at the chicken with his fork until a bite-sized chunk tore away. “And I’ve got a more magic-savvy team analysing his blood while we speak. The doctors who dealt with Thor didn’t notice anything weird with his blood, when they finally managed to get a sample, but Fury’s guys figured out there was something supernatural in it. Nobody’ll give me details, but they’re looking for the same thing in Loki.”

“So we’ll know one way or another once they’re done?”

“Not necessarily. Loki’s adopted, remember? They might’ve just found whatever mojo Odin used to make him human, in which case we’d be all set. But if they find nothing, we won’t know if there’s something else they should be looking for instead.”

Rogers let out a sigh that was much more patient than anything Tony felt like giving, and shook his perfect blond head. “And even then we don’t know if the amnesia’s a game or not.”

“Will it make much of a difference if he is? We get proof that he’s Loki, and Fury’ll have him in a cage before you can say ‘Geneva Convention’.”

“I don’t think _Fury’s_ the one in this situation who needs a lesson on human rights.”

“Oh, I think he _understands_ them just fine,” Tony admitted, shrugging. “But do you really think he’ll actually follow those laws where Loki’s involved?”

Rogers’ eyebrows seemed to be attempting valiantly to fuse together, as tightly as he had drawn them in with concern. “You have a point. But Loki or not, if he _has_ got amnesia, I don’t think I’m the only one who’ll protest if Fury shoves him in a cell to be tortured.”

“So, what, you _wouldn’t_ protest if he did have his memory?”

“Of course I would. But I’d probably be the only one doing it.”

“Hm.” Tony twirled the accompanying pasta around his chicken, but if Rogers was looking for his personal input, he wasn’t going to get it. True, he hated the idea of torture, but… _Loki._ If anyone deserved it, didn’t he? Yes, but the fact remained that he still couldn’t be sure anyone _did_. “Well things are going to get pretty morally muddy when we start talking memory. If he can’t remember what he did, is he still to blame for it?”

“That’s not an easy question to answer. On one hand, he still would be the one who attacked Manhattan- but if he has no memory of it, he’s almost a different person entirely. There’s not much point punishing somebody for something they don’t remember doing. That’s just wanting to see them suffer, they can’t repent, or reform.”

“Sometimes the suffering is all people want to see.” The chicken had grown tepid on the way home, but it tasted good enough, and Tony allowed himself a few moments of chewing before continuing. “He killed a lot of people. Did you get a good look at the casualty list? Newborns, infants, teenagers. There are a lot of parents out there who won’t give a damn if he remembers or not- they’d stick him on a crucifix if not for the whole church and state thing.”

“That would be sacrilegious anyway, I don’t think people would react well to comparing Loki and Christ,” Rogers pointed out, perhaps a little gruffly. “And whatever he did, he doesn’t remember doing it. He may as well _not_ have done it. But is it really fair for him to have a clean slate?”

“Not a fan of second chances, big guy?”

“This isn’t quite the same thing. A second chance is earned- Loki would be given a completely new life without doing anything for it, or even proving he wanted it. That’s a reward, not punishment. But if he really is a better person as he is now…” Rogers trailed off with a rather despondent sigh, and took a sip of his own drink ( _water_ , and he couldn’t even _get_ drunk), as if to give himself time to think. “This would be a lot easier if we could get Thor down here to at least explain if Asgard had a hand in all this.”

“Wouldn’t _that_ be nice. Guess gods have bigger things to deal with than the people their prince slaughtered.”

“I don’t think they’re strictly gods, Stark.”

“What, I threatening those delicate Catholic-boy insecurities? Easy, I’d be very surprised if it turned out they had some all-mighty control over our planet, but they’re a few thousand years old and had a culture full of worshippers. ‘Alien’ doesn’t cut it, and I’ve learned that demi-god just makes people think of Rick Riordan. So, gods for now.” Not that Tony thought Christianity, Judaism, or whatever any more likely, but he really hadn’t brought Rogers here for a religious debate. “Look, putting all that aside, we don’t _get_ Thor. We have to work this all out ourselves… including the right-and-wrong debate.”

Rogers, almost surprisingly, merely nodded. “But are we going to be the ones to make that decision? I’d like to think we’ll get a say in it, but I have a feeling that isn’t going to happen.”

“Well, I wanted to talk to you about that, actually,” Tony cut in, quickly swallowing the chicken he had busied himself with, and clearing his throat once or twice so the words that followed would have the effect he intended. He leaned forward, and fixed the Captain with his most serious look, hoping the other’s opinion of him wouldn’t be so bad that he would choose to ignore it. “I want you to stay here.”

“What? The tower? SHIELD gave me money for a hotel, I don’t need-”

“It’s not about your wallet, Winter Wonderland. I asked Bruce as well, and he’s fine with moving back in,” Tony added hurriedly, seeing despite Rogers’ attempts to hide it that he wasn’t all too comfortable with the idea of living in the tower with no company other than Tony. (And JARVIS, but the AI was keeping blessedly silent to avoid frightening their houseguest just yet.)

Rogers nodded, in apparent comprehension. “You’re gathering the team.”

“No.” The eyebrows fled apart with remarkable speed, and Tony, despite his busied thoughts, couldn’t help but marvelling at their ability to express. They were almost doing a better job of it than Rogers as a whole. “I’m gathering the two of you. Natasha knows what she’s doing, but she cares about protocol too much, and her morality is weaker than _mine,_ even if her punches aren’t. And Barton… I don’t need to explain that. The point is, the two of you are the only ones I can trust, and I want you nearby so that when Fury crosses a line, we’ll know, and be close enough to stop him.”

And he could have sworn that Rogers was startled, even _flattered_ , by that- and not just his eyebrows. “...All right. You know he’s going to be suspicious when he finds out you’ve made the tower a hostel for wayward superheroes, right?”

“Fury’s always suspicious, won’t make much of a difference. Now, by next Saturday I’ll have everything from Foster and the neurologist, so I want you to come with me to meet Loki. I’d bring Bruce, but I have a feeling the Hulk won’t care whether Loki’s got amnesia or not, and I’d really rather ease them into a second meeting-”

“ _Sir? I do hate to interrupt, but Natasha Romanov has attempted at least ten phone calls in the last five minutes, and I am beginning to think it is urgent.”_

It was a bad, poorly prioritized thing to do, but Tony kept his gaze fixated hopefully on Rogers as JARVIS gave his alert, and felt a sting of disappointment to see the Captain moving no more than to turn his gaze up to the ceiling, where he apparently assumed the cameras and voice were centered. Damn. “I said no calls.”

“ _You say a great many things, sir, and I have been programmed to inform you when they appear to be foolish, no matter how often you ignore me.”_

Fair enough. “All right, patch her through.”

A few moments later, and Tony’s kitchen was filled with the dulcet tones of an angry Russian’s swearing, coming to a rather abrupt end as she realized the phone had collected. “Stark, I _am_ going to yell at you for this, but right now we don’t have the time for that. Where’s Captain?”

“Right here with me, enjoying a plate of real Italian food,” Tony joked (for nobody’s sake but his own), lifting his glass in a mockery of a salute. Rogers didn’t even deign that with a roll of his eyes, merely watching him with a slightly tilted eyebrow. (Fucking _eyebrows._ ) “Considering you have just bombarded the ear of my AI, I’m assuming you have big news.”

“The both of you need to get to Loki immediately, the rest of us are on the way, but we’re still miles out.”

Tony’s head jerked slightly upward, eyes narrowing in response to the scenarios his mind was already supplying- Loki blowing up a city street, Loki covered in that kid’s blood, Loki grabbing for his throat- and heard Rogers’ chair scraping back as he, too, tensed up. “What’s the situation?”

“Barton’s broken out of lock-down, and his bow’s gone with him. Get moving, now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhangers are fun and overdramatic and I should apologize for the lameness but will not.
> 
> Also, watching Chris Evans' eyebrows the whole time makes the Captain America even better.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, guess who's alive! I take way too long to update, I am so very sorry.D: And this chapter's a bit odd as well, but I hope not too much so- there's a lot more to explain coming up in the next one. It's a little rough and probably needs a little extra editing which will come tonight, but let me know if you see any typos or mistakes! They are bound to happen now and then.
> 
> Oh, if anyone's seen Cap 2 yet, it is awesome, and amazing, and I am just not getting into the complications it creates for various things. This is an AU already, so just put aside the new info where this fic is concerned, if ye don't mind.

“Where is he?” Rogers had no way of knowing for sure that SHIELD was tracking Loki, but Tony was glad to see he was smart enough to make the assumption, even with his modern-era-ignorance.

 

“Loki’s in central park, at the Loeb Boathouse with Parker and his girlfriend. Clint only found one of the trackers on his bow, we’ll send you the surveillance for the other one, but if he ditches that, too, then you’re on your own.”

 

Tony swore, not particularly caring if either Natasha or the Captain overheard him. Central Park was bad. It was public, teeming with people at the slowest of times, and had a great many perches for a renegade archer to hide as he took his shot. If he went in with the suit JARVIS would probably be able to pick up his reading the second they got there, but there was the little problem of an ensuing PR nightmare. There would probably be something of a panic, if Tony burst in armed and tackled another known Avenger out of a tree, and people would want to know why. There would be no more covering up who they thought Loki to be, no more press releases apologizing for mistaken identities. It wasn’t worth it, for Fury, not when it was Loki’s life in danger.

 

But to Tony?

 

Life was life, and even if Loki’s had been tainted by his own crimes, there was a high chance that he didn’t remember a single moment of what he was to blame _for_ \- and then, of course, there was Clint. He had killed before, and done it often, so Loki would just be another notch on the tally, in theory. But the want for revenge had practically consumed him during these last few weeks, and Tony didn’t really want to think about what he would do to take it. Or how it would affect him afterward.

 

The answer, then, was pretty obvious.

 

***

Rogers didn’t complain even once about having to travel in Tony’s grip, though he did grimace just a little when they took off, probably not all too used to flying with no more holding him up that a pair of robotic arms criss-crossed over his chest. They must have made quite the sight, but Tony didn’t really care what bizarre headlines would pop up in the morning, so long as they reached Barton before he could put an arrow through Loki’s skull.

 

“It appears as if agent Barton as already reached his destination, sir,” JARVIS commented, in response to the stillness of the beeping dot he was tracking on the screen, a detailed map courtesy of SHIELD. “Though it is also possible that he has simply abandoned the tracker. Shall I search the security cameras of the building to confirm?”

  
The building, Tony could assume, being where Barton had stopped- close enough to the park, and the Boathouse, that it was reasonable to guess he actually meant to be there. Which was good, since it probably meant he hadn’t just tossed the tracker and run off somewhere they would never be able to find him in time, but also bad, since it meant he could fire at any moment.

 

And they were still three minutes out.

 

“Yeah, get on that. And all the neighboring ones too, see if any of them have caught a look at him.” Tony had the speakers on for the suit, so he knew Rogers could hear him, but the Captain remained grim and silent, the only sign of recognizing the words being a slight furrowing of his brow.

 

Maybe that was because he was concentrating on not falling, or trying to retain some dignity, but there was almost as much tension in the thin air now as there had been that day in the helicarrier. What did they do if they were too late? What did they do if they weren’t?

 

“Agent Barton has just ascended to the roof of the detected apartment building, sir, and he appears to be wielding his bow. There is no surveillance footage of the roof itself, however no alarms have sounded, and I do not believe anyone within is aware of his presence. Shall I alert the police?”

 

“No, they won’t get there in time to do any good. Let Fury know.” As if he wouldn’t already, considering where the transmission of the tracker was coming from.

 

Tony’s brain was assuring him they only had two minutes left, and that was much longer than it would take even the most clumsy archer to knock a arrow and settle on his target. Clint would need only seconds. He grit his teeth, and told JARVIS to see if he could get an eye on the building some other way, then diverted all excess power to the repulsors, speeding them onward as fast as he dared, considering his unwieldy human cargo. He would be a poor excuse for a hero if he couldn't save even one person in broad daylight. They had to hurry, even if it strained the suit and Rogers both, because the building was looming closer now, but still much too far away.

 

What awaited them when they finally, blessedly, touched target was… unanticipated.

 

“Ah, my friends!” Thor boomed, his voice carrying easily over the large rooftop as he strode towards them, one arm extended outward in a grand, welcoming gesture. Maybe the other would have joined it, except it was a little too busy hoisting up one Clint Barton, tucked easily beneath is arm like an unruly toddler, kicking and all.

 

Though the furious swearing and threats were far from childish, and the burning, honest hatred in his voice as he snarled them out did a great deal to crush the humor of the situation.

 

“Thor?” Steve demanded, extracting himself from Tony’s grip and striding calmly forward to close the distance, shield gripped tight and ready, which seemed a pretty unnecessary precaution at this point. “What’s going on here?”

 

Seemed obvious enough to Tony, and he would have said so, if he could bring himself to stop gaping and form a coherent sentence. Clint’s bow was snapped in two string weakly fluttering in the breeze between the shattered, discarded pieces, and his quiver was sporting a spectacular dent, suggesting an Asgardian boot had put an end to the threat of individual arrows. They lay at the center of a scorched concrete, marked with wild and intricate symbols he recognized only vaguely from SHIELD’s database. You’d think they’d have noticed something, with that big ole flash of light, even if they’d somehow been miles out when it happened…

 

“My father repaired the bifrost using the tesseract’s power months ago, and shielded my arrival today with his own,” Thor explained, first to Steve and then Tony himself, perhaps sensing his thoughts. “It took a great deal of his strength, but we could not afford for anyone to see… I shall explain all in good time, but first I must request your assistance in restraining agent Barton. I had hoped he would calm down, but I have thus far been disappointed.”

 

“I will blow your sorry ass back to Norway if you don't put me the fuck down, you outdated son of a bitch!”

 

No, definitely not calm. They didn’t have rope on them, or anything like it except for a very thin bow string, but with the two of them holding him down, it was short work for Thor to double-wrapMjolnir’s grip tight around Barton’s wrist. The immovable weight would keep him down well enough, and while he could probably eventually slip his way free (though the leather was so tight it was digging into his skin, turning the skin around it an eerily pale white), there was no way he would do it without them noticing. They sat in a ring, Barton in the middle of it, growling and glaring but silent enough now to keep his dignity, and Thor had the unofficial floor, once tense and baffled greetings were over with.

 

“I am sorry for interfering unannounced,” He began, actually sounding sorry, which was just plain bizarre, considering how arrogant he had been even as their teammate.

 

Tony didn’t particularly want him to go reverting, so he quickly gave his assurance. “Don’t worry about it, Conan, you just saved us one hell of a mess. And probably kept you out of jail, so put the pouting on the shelf like a big boy, would ya?”

 

Clint glared, then stuck his tongue out in defiance, which was childish enough to stun Tony out of a retort.

 

Steve sighed and muttered something un-flattering, and Thor simply frowned, his eyes cold as they regarded Barton. “I did not do it for you, but I am glad my actions save you trouble instead of causing it. And I must thank you for your attempts as well- I know not if you would have arrived in time, but it is a relief that my brother’s safety does not solely rely on coincidence.”

 

“Coincidence?” Steve wondered, frowning. “You didn’t come here to save him?”

 

“Had I known he was in danger, I would have. But Loki has kept hidden from Heimdall’s sight since his banishment, though through what power I know not, for his own has been sealed.” Thor grimaced at that, looking as if he might drown in thought, and Tony was far too impatient to let that happen.

 

“You’re going to have to give us more than that. Start with what the hell you’re doing down on a-very-different-god’s green earth.”

 

If Thor particularly cared about that bizarre abuse of a mortal colloquialism, he made no sign of it. Instead he turned, expression softening but still undeniably displeased, out toward the park, where Tony, with the aid of the suit, could easily make out Loki and the teenagers, gathered around some uncomfortable metal table. Clint had picked a great vantage point- they were close enough that he probably could have made them out even without JARVIS zooming in for him, and with that help he could even make out the smudge of ice cream across the god’s nose, the way he laughed as one of the kids pointed it out. Beside him, Steve had gone stiff, though he remained silent, and Tony really couldn’t blame him. It was, after all, the first time he’d seen Loki since the battle of Manhattan.

 

The confliction was clear in Thor’s face, pain and guilt and anger and relief all at once, so strong that Tony decided immediately that he was glad not to be a god. He didn’t think he could handle that, feeling so much all at once. “I came to offer my help, and a warning. As you may recall, our Gatekeeper, Heimdall, is capable of witnessing anything he chooses to focus his sight upon, and is constantly alert for threats to the nine realms.”

 

Tony nodded, yeah, of course, made perfect sense, and Thor continued. “Loki has always been able to hide himself when he wishes, but without his magic it should have been impossible. Yet he is veiled, through methods we know not of, and he is… not alone. Heimdall has sensed something else of late, a great force fighting against his gaze, coming nearer to earth every day, and whenever he tries to focus on it, he is forced away. The same occurs when he looks to Loki, and we feared he had taken arms against your people again, but looking to earth revealed no danger. And it may be impossible to focus on Loki, but Heimdall can sense where he is, at the center of the blackness that eludes him, which is strange enough in itself. Before, when he hid himself, Loki was simply invisible, there was no sign at all that anything was amiss.”

 

Somewhere in there, Tony had stopped breathing, but now the need for it was tugging at his throat, and he gasped in enough to fill his lungs. Loki. An immense force. Great power. Those things really should not be combined, under even the best of circumstances.

 

He saw his agitation reflected on two other mortal faces, and Thor hastened to calm them. “We have reasoned by watching those around him that Loki is not working any plot, and Odin has not sensed him attempting to access his magic. This enemy, whatever it is, is somehow hiding him as well, intentionally or not. We feared earth may soon need to rally in its own defense once again, and I mean to offer my assistance, and inform your leaders of everything I can. In order to determine where best to arrive, Heimdall attempted to locate all of you, my old companions, and when he looked to agent Barton…”

  


“He found him pointing an arrow at your brother’s negative space?” Tony guessed, earning both a nod and a scowl, from the two men involved. “So that’s… fuck, that’s not good. Chances are there’s an army, an alien army, again, on our doorstep? Awesome. You know, I thought it was bad enough that Loki was here.”

 

“It is not so alarming as that, for the forces seem to be coming near to earth, but if they continue on their current path, they will pass it by. Your people have only just begun to attract the attention of the other realms, and such things are not unheard of. We have sensed potential dangers near to Earth before, but this is the first time since you have openly interacted with outside worlds, and we thought it may be best if you were prepared, just in case,” Thor assured, tentatively. It wasn’t exactly the most relaxing thing to hear, because it was obvious by the god’s nervous expression that the gatekeeper had never failed before. Whatever this thing, this problem was, it was nothing Thor had ever seen before.

 

God, and he’d thought life was complicated before. Tony took a deep breath, and let it out in a groaning sigh, wondering what he could say that wouldn’t sound frantic, but Steve, bless him, took the reigns before he had to. “Okay, wait, let’s not do anything until we’ve got all the information. Is there any way Loki’s got his magic? For all we know, he’s the one bringing them here.”

 

“No. My brother is not to blame, I am sure of it.” Too much, too much, Tony’s head was pounding, his suit felt too tight, too heavy, and Thor just went on talking. “For his crimes, Odin intended the same course he took with me, to banish Loki to earth, his powers bound, and force him to live as one of the mortals he attempted to enslave. Unfortunately, my father’s anger overwhelmed him before he could even deliver the sentence, and he struck him unconscious before sending him here to earth.”

 

“He damn near killed him,” Tony muttered, forgetting of course who he was dealing with, because he hadn’t meant for Thor to hear him, but the god went rigid, tense and nervous. “Uh, yeah, you see, the thing about mortal bodies is that they don’t take to well to… what was it, ‘striking’? He doesn’t remember anything.”

 

Thor deflated, but he seemed to be doing so with relief, not hurt. “Ah, yes, I was aware of that. That is why Odin risked using his magic to control my arrival here, for we do not wish to give Loki any sign or knowledge of Asgard, lest they spark a return of his memories. If he comes to love Midgard, unaware, we have hopes that his memory will bring with it the lesson he so dearly needs to learn.”

 

Lesson. Right. Amnesia seemed like an easy way out, but no magic was good, though he was still veiled, there were people coming to earth, Clint was snarling with renewed fury and cursing again at Thor, Loki was right there, actually Loki, unaware of the people he’d killed, nothing to pay but a scar on his temple, and there was an army of aliens-

 

Okay, time out. There were a few thousand things to deal with, and one of them was right there, oblivious, and Tony realized that it was his job to keep him that way. He rose, in the midst of Steve’s attempts to mediate, cutting all sides of the argument off as three pairs of eyes turned toward him (one inquiring, one threatening, one exhausted).

 

“We’re going back to the tower, we’re calling SHIELD, and we’re getting all this shit straight before we even think of doing anything else. Rogers, you’re more than qualified to hold down the fort while I’m gone, I’m hoping? If not, I have a few very pressing concerns to bring to Capitol Hill. And patriotism in general.”

 

Tony was rambling, but it cooled his panic, didn’t fuel it. Thor grabbed hold of mjolnir, and thus Barton, before he rose, but Rogers was on his feet faster, uninhibited as he was. “Gone? Stark, this is an international incident in the making, we’re needed at base immediately. Where could you possibly be going?”

 

***

There was a dull throbbing at the back of his head, just above where spine met skull, putting an unpleasant edge over his vision, but Loki was doing his best to ignore it. It was hardly a rare pain, after all, and it was minor compared to most, despite how long this one it had lasted, nothing worth worrying the others over. He did not want to ruin this outing of theirs, and the winter breeze (snow, he was told, should have been there already, was likely to arrive on the weekend, and his heart was pounding eagerly at the mere thought) was pleasant enough to put the thought of it to rest. It was perhaps not the best weather for ice cream or cold ham sandwiches, and both the children had gotten hot chocolate and warm soup, but he preferred the chill down his throat, for it eased the headache, and relaxed him in a way he had to assume came from the remnants of his memories.

 

And, of course, there was the less dramatic fact that it tasted good.

 

“It’s December, you know, you’re going to get pneumonia. And then you’ll probably either get in the Guinness book of records or die, what with the hospital rap sheet you’re compiling,” Peter had said when he placed his order, and even now he was eyeing the selection askance, but miraculously had run out of jokes about two minutes ago, which was almost certainly only a temporary measure (and one Loki intended to take full advantage of).

 

“Does it feel… strange, being here?” Gwen wondered, glancing out over the partially frozen lake, bearing the signs of the season that the clouds had not yet brought them. “I know it would be just a little ridiculous to expect any sudden flashbacks, but even knowing you were attacked here must be a bit bizarre.”

 

Loki supposed she had a point; his head had been bashed in, near-fatally, by some unknown weapon a few hundred yards away from where they sat. Peter had even shown him the statue, but they hadn’t lingered there long. The clean up crew had done a wonderful job, and the few copper-toned marks that lingered on the pavement were no less than could have been expected. Nobody else seemed even to notice, but Loki had spotted his own blood staining the stone, and decided that he wanted nothing more to do with Alice in Wonderland.

 

“Not this part, at least,” he decided, feeling nothing but a soft fondness as he watched the children bustling excitedly through the park, weary parents at their heels, dodging between the legs of the many camera-armed tourists. “I should like to see it in the snow, if we could. You both will be free for awhile starting next Friday, won’t you? What is it… three weeks?”

 

“Three glorious weeks. With Christmas smack dab in the center, by the way, and you’re going to love it,” Peter assured. Decorations for the holiday had been everywhere for as far as Loki could remember, but they were springing up in force now, and the radios seemed to be playing nothing but seasonal tunes. It was not as if he listened to music, much, but it was hard to miss it all, now that he’d actually begun to focus on the world around him. And with the brighter colors and pleasant tunes and passerby whose arms were laden with packages came thousands of vacationers.

 

It was not something really prevalent in his mind, however, not with all else going on, and as usual he simply shrugged it all off- between Stark, work, and his own ailings, Loki could only focus on holidays when they happened to come into conversation. “Do you have any plans? For your time off?”

 

“We’ll be going down to Manhattan whenever we can,” Gwen offered, and Loki could not help the way his face lit up. Since his conversation with Stark (just that morning, was it? It felt a world away, for all it had taught him), the city’s destruction had plagued his mind, and he was itching with the need to return, lend his aid once again. He had been too tired for it, mostly, since starting work, but energy came more easily to him now- perhaps he could manage? “And then there’s homework, of course. Though Peter here will inevitably keep that at bay until the final days and you and I will both have to endure his tortured groans.”

 

“Groans? Think cries to the heavens, I have no intentions of being subtle.”

 

Loki laughed, for Peter really was the sort to put on such a dramatic display if the mood took him, but the sound was cut somewhat short. Not short enough to worry the others, and Gwen came in with her rebuttal without pause, but nonetheless the sound died in his throat, and his eyes narrowed not in anger or fear but the same confusion that had snatched his amusement away.

 

Stark was not to meet him until a week from the day, and surely he could not have expected a call this quickly, but he was here, bypassing the curious crowd with sunglasses and a raised coat hood. Not exactly bizarre, given the temperature, and few people even looked twice, but Loki could not see how they missed it, as if they could not even see beyond the thin panels cloaking his eyes. “If you have forgotten something, could it not wait until next week?”

 

Peter had gone rigid a moment before Loki asked the question, but both he and Gwen turned once it had been asked to assess the approaching “threat”. Stark strode to their table, hands raised in a mock surrender, and cast an easy grin to calm their nerves. “Wow, way to make a guy feel wanted. Maybe I’m just going for a walk.”

 

“To our table?” Gwen wondered, not the least bit intimidated by the same celebrity air about Stark that had Peter shifting, uncertain, in his own seat. “You know, New York’s full of tourist destinations, but I’m pretty sure that’s not listed in the travel guide.”

 

“Really? Wow, your copy is horribly out of date, your table is the place to visit these days. Actually, I’ve got news, believe it or not- that neurologist I told you about, he wants to see you tonight. One of those soon as possible sort of things, he rewrote his entire schedule to fit you in.” He emphasised the last words, eyes boring into Loki’s through the sunglasses, and he resisted the urge to wince. “And don’t worry, you can bring your teenage posse along and we’ll all pretend this is a perfectly normal adult-youth relationship when people start asking awkward questions.”

 

Loki wasn’t quite sure what made him do it, but he rose sharply to his feet, table scraping feebly against the ground as it went, and Stark’s eyebrows flew up. Surprised, perhaps, at the forceful gesture? He did not attempt any aggressive stance, did not overbear with his height, but he could not talk to this man like that again. Without warning, or welcome, coming to stand above where they all sat, making demands… It was blatantly rude, but was it not really a favor on his behalf? Considering the wounds on his own throat, Loki did not think a touch of assistance enough to excuse this perpetually unpleasant behavior.

 

How did you find me? Why? What do you want? What have you learned, what can you tell me? I only want to know as much about me as you do.

 

All those words died in his throat, and Loki shifted, uncomfortably, unsure what he meant to say, wishing he had not stood in the first place. “I know my own way to the hospital. Give me the name of the man and I will find him for myself.”

 

“He doesn’t work at the hospital. He’s an off-site specialist, works for SHIELD.”

 

“SHIELD?”

 

“It’s an intel organization that also regulates super humans,” Peter supplied. “They coordinated the Avengers, and dealt with cleaning up all the alien technology left around after the battle. Of course, that’s about where public info stops, and nobody likes to guess what they’re doing with all of it. He’s not going to SHIELD.”

 

“No, he’s going to a SHIELD doctor, who doesn’t technically work at headquarters. You really think I’d bring him there? I’m not making any secrets about who’s involved in this, kid, never was. He’ll be safe, you at least will know where he’s going, and like I said, tagging along is still an option. A dwindling one, though, since this little happy hour is eating away our travel time.” Stark cast a pointed glance at his wrist, though he was not wearing a watch, and gave a suffering sigh. “Come on. I’m Iron Man, internationally beloved superhero! I shoot bad guys, save the world, and occasionally mistake waiters for supervillains, everyone has bad days.”

 

“I’ll go,” Loki assured quickly. He did not know how this conversation could possibly end pleasantly, and he hated the tension running through the air, hated knowing how much it bothered Peter to glare at his (former?) hero like this. “Really, no need to be so dramatic, any of you. I can’t imagine it will take too long, no need to wait up for me.”

 

“You’re kidding, right? I mean no offense, but I’m pretty sure that if you get on the subway, you’ll end up in Tokyo.”

 

“Which is why Mr. Stark will be driving me, I assume?” Assuming was not something Loki liked to do, in fact, but here it seemed justified enough, and he could not help a slight twitch of amusement in his lips. Stark did not seem taken aback, but for some reason he was smiling, like he found the comment… reassuring?

 

“If I didn’t, I’m ninety nine percent sure you’d be mugged, again, and this time around people would probably blame it on me.”

 

Loki steeled himself for the childrens’ protests, but Peter did no more than shrug, and Gwen had nodded her cautious agreement some time ago. “Yeah, fine, okay. You’re a big boy now, we’re not really allowed to stop you. If it’s what you want to do, go ahead, but… be careful?”

 

He winced on the word, as if recognizing how odd it sounded, to be warning a man twice his age or perhaps more about such things, but Loki simply smiled his thanks and assured that he would. Both of them insisted on having a hand-written copy of the address in their possessions before they sent them off, with a warning that Gwen would call in a few law-enforcing favors if Loki wasn’t either home or in contact with them in four hours.

 

“Those two are way too old to be teenagers,” Stark was muttering as they went, veering off the path in the man’s apparent impatience to reach his car. “Seriously, there’s a forty year-old veteran trapped in there somewhere. Do they ever relax?”

 

“Quite often, in fact. Given your track record, I cannot see how they should be blamed for a little paranoia.”

 

The man was dressed in nothing but jeans and a dark jacket, seemed to be shivering somewhat even as he laughed. Loki, in the long black coat he had bought with half of his first paycheck, was almost over-warm, but decided against offering it over. “That is much truer than I wish it was. But to be fair-”

 

He broke off, expression twisting into something not unlike a grimace, and Loki watched in confusion as the look smoothed away, not a remnant left. “Sorry about the whole choking thing. I don’t usually do that. Even to… It’s not just who I thought you were, it’s what. My job description- well, one of them- basically requires me to be a-okay with killing, and I am, but I’m not one for the unnecessary beating sort of thing. Far as I knew, that hand around your throat shouldn’t even have left a bruise.”

 

“It is... quite alright,” Loki decided upon, hesitantly, after the silence had lengthened to a spectacularly awkward time frame. Why was the man bringing this up now? He had agreed to let bygones be bygones when he told the police he would not be pressing charges, and he knew already that Stark had only attacked him because he thought him a criminal. Whatever guilt he may have felt over the incident had, seemingly, been assuaged even before their first meeting, and Loki could only blame him so much, which was to say hardly at all, for he had been given his name in exchange for those wounds. His name and a few haunting possibilities, but that was what they were off to clear up, after all, and Stark was the one kind enough to arrange it for him, despite the early misconceptions between them.

 

It shouldn’t have mattered, that he would not have attempted to harm even a villain so badly, if he had known the results of his attack. It shouldn’t have made a difference at all, but somehow it did, and Loki entered the car too deep in thought to even comment on the luxury of it.

 

He had expected silence, but he should have known better, perhaps. Stark’s radio began blaring at awful levels from the moment the car stirred to life, so suddenly that Loki could not hide a wince as his headache awakened with a similar vengeance. The sound had dropped after that, but the noise had been made up for with words, strings of conversation from the entrepreneur that Loki fumbled to respond to as well as he could through the pain in his head.

 

“I know a guy you really need to talk to one of these days. You ever heard of Captain America?”

 

The headache roared behind his right eye, pounding, and Loki told himself the name had nothing to do with it. “I have.”

 

“Well, you’re even more oblivious to the world at large than he is, but he’s got a pretty good grip on handling it. There’s this list he made, you should check it out- movies, songs, food, things like that which us modern folk are obsessed with.”

 

Stark wanted to introduce him to the Captain? Peter probably would have outright swooned, if he knew, and Loki decided that the boy would have to be invited, if such a thing ever did come to pass. “I… am catching up as well as I can, I think. Peter and Gwen have been very accommodating, and then there’s the internet, it is very helpful.”

 

The man laughed (pain, throbbing), setting a frown over Loki’s expression. He didn’t think he’d sounded that foolish… but Stark shook his head only seconds later, perhaps in apology. “You’ll figure it out when you meet him, you two could be culturally illiterate twins, it’s a bit perfect. But uh, don’t tell him I said that. I don’t fancy breaking my nose on a childhood hero’s fist.”

 

“Childhood-?” Ah, yes, Stark was much younger than Rogers, if not in experience than in time, but he did not seem quite old enough, still, to have been around during the man’s golden age. “Pardon me saying so, but you do not look as if you could have been alive in the same years.”

 

“What about me says seventy years old, if you’d care to elaborate?” Stark complained, eyes drawing in to enunciate a few wrinkles around them, but Loki decided against pointing this out. “My dad knew him, helped make him, actually, and talked about him all the time. Those were basically the only polite conversations we had, and I hated him as much as I worshipped him. Turns out he’s a complete asshole, of course, though I guess anybody running around in an American flag would have to be.” He caught Loki staring, probably with the help of the mirrors, and scoffed. “What? It’s not like I’m spinning any heartfelt yarns here, don’t look that surprised. It was a long time ago, and since being unfortunate enough to meet the man behind the mask, I couldn’t care less.”

 

“That’s not it.” Though perhaps it should have been, Loki realized, for he hadn’t thought anything of Stark sharing a childhood story, but it did not seem the sort of thing he was oft to do. Steve Rogers must have been an issue bubbling under his skin for some time. “I was only thinking that this Captain seems to have been to you much like you are to Peter.”

 

The derision drained away, or rather seemed to draw inward, and for the first time Loki noticed how hard Stark’s hands were gripping the steering wheel, the white of his knuckles bleeding out into his fingers. Perhaps not the most healthy thing, but again, he refrained from comment. “Yeah. Maybe. You know, I only met him because of you.”

 

“Peter? Yes, I know-”

 

“No, Rogers. We got together, him and me and four others, to take you down.” Stark fixed him with a hard look, and as a jolt of fear ran down Loki’s spine the grip on the wheel relaxed, just barely. “Or whoever you might be, anyway. You kind of kicked his ass in Germany and threw me out a window. We got our varying paybacks, but still sorta stung.”

 

“I see…” Were the doors locked? No, but Stark had not been going the proper speed-limit since they began, and he would likely break his neck if he tried to flee now, and that being if a car did not hit him first. “Was- was your vengeance sufficient, I hope?”

 

“Whoa, easy.” Loki realized he’d been putting distance between them as best he could, glancing nervously toward the door, only now, and he tensed as Stark reached toward him. The hand halted, drew back, raised in a placating gesture. “I’m not trying to scare you, that’s not my style. No matter who you turn out to be, I’m not going to hurt you, all right?” Not again, Loki’s mind contradicted, but he simply waited, silent. “A lot of people will want to, and maybe they’ve got plenty of reason, but I don’t… Lording over anyone is a strictly off-limits behavior in my book, okay? I’ve had power my whole life, if I start abusing it, I’m not going to stop.”

 

“But you wish to,” Loki realized, softly. Not against him, perhaps, and maybe not even now, but there was something in Stark that spoke undeniably of want.

 

He sighed, chuckled, and rolled his eyes, snapping some sort of spell Loki didn’t realize had been there. “Sometimes, I guess. Sheesh, you’re even worse of a drama queen without your memory.”

 

***

Two hours later found him once more in the passenger seat of that very car, but the man next to him had none of Stark’s good cheer (nor, blessedly, his tension). His name, despite the persistent lack of anything to justify it, was Happy, he had been told, former chauffeur called back to his old duties as a favor for his friend. He’d been told to expect him, after his appointment, but Loki still felt uncomfortable seated beside him, even more unwanted than he had been with the vehicle’s owner.

 

Some business, undefined by clearly urgent by the anxiety it created, had called Stark away as they entered the neurologist’s building, and he had fled with a promise to send someone who would pick him up, and a rather short-handed apology. Leaving him alone, in the cold, dim office with no more company than a hard-eyed nurse and the neurologist himself, who had enough muscle to pass for the security guard without closer expression. Neither seemed the sort of people to keep waiting, and Loki had meekly gone forward, head and heart beating a frantic rhythm.

 

The tests were not as intrusive as he had anticipated and feared, but they were tiresome. They made him lay completely still and took scans of his head, they flashed lights in his eyes and asked questions, attached sensors and wires to his temple which sent small shocks through him, more startling than painful, at spontaneous intervals. He couldn’t guess the purpose of more than half of it, but he did as he was told, if only to entertain the thin hope that somehow these men would be able to restore what he had lost. They studied the scar, and took extra scans and x-rays of the area beneath it, but made no comment throughout it all, except when to tell him to turn over, or speak.

 

And of course, to ask their questions, most about the headaches, once he mentioned them. That topic seemed to absorb the most of their attention, and Loki did not care for the long while he spent being prodded over it, for at the end they gave him a drink of medicine to ease the pain, and he could have cried in relief. His head had hurt so badly by then that he had begun to feel dizzy, as if he might throw up, and the medicine toned it back to that dull pulsing.

 

A great deal of water and some rest helped, too, for they left him be for twenty minutes to assess his results. Loki couldn’t help but feel that some of them were bound to seem bizarre, for many of their tests hadn’t seemed to be involved with his head at all, but he did no more than bite his words back and nod. For now, his choice was only to do as he was told, and hope.

 

Hope in vain, it turned out. _Beyond the obvious, there seems to be nothing wrong with you. Those headaches should have stopped ages ago, and I can’t detect anything that might be causing them- try the medicine, and I’ll recommend you for psychiatric help. With any luck, the problem’s only mental. As for your memories… We’ll do what we can. If I think surgery may help, we’ll call you._

 

A little bag of medicine, and some empty words. Loki bit his lip to keep himself from whining, for he did not want to explain any such thing to Happy, and the man had so far been kind (or indifferent) enough to ignore his frightened look.

 

It was nothing, really, or it shouldn’t have been. Loki had not expected anything of the sort until this morning, when Stark had mentioned a doctor, and even then had only agreed because he thought the man would pester him until he did. He would have been just as fine healing on his own, going through his life day by day and working out what he needed by his own merit. A neurologist had not seemed necessary. But to go to one, and know that something really was wrong that should not have been, was… unsettling.

 

He thanked the man as well as he could bring himself to, once he was dropped at May’s home, and put on an easy smile when he entered it. Gwen and Peter were there, sheepish, and he discovered the cause for their apologetic looks only moments later, for May rounded on him as soon as he was spotted. He had been careless and foolish, and selfish even, to think of going off like that without them, for all the fear he had caused her, without even a phone she might have used to discover that he was okay.

  
Loki apologized, over and over again, but he felt the lecture as more relaxing than upsetting. Whatever else happened, the people of this household cared about him, bizarre as that still seemed. They invited him to their table, shared their home and their laughter, even let him join them in decorating a bizarre plastic tree, to the jingling tunes of Christmas carols, cups of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies accompanying the task. Loki’s pain and fear vanished in the warmth of it all, and content wrapped over and filled him up, putting the neurologist’s words far at the back of his mind.

 

But once the lights were off, and the music silenced, the weight of the news grew heavier. Stark’s number sat like a stone in his pocket, the invitation to call ringing in his memory. Loki eyed the phone, uncertain, suspicious even, but his head throbbed as if in encouragement, and he hurried forward to grasp the receiver before he could stop himself. It was difficult to dial, for the numbers beeped so loudly he feared he might alert Peter or May, who had retired to bed just moments ago, but he managed, and no footsteps came to interrupt.

 

It was as foolish as everything else lately, but Loki could not help feeling, as the phone rang dimly in his ear, that he was doing something wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I'm not a neurologist, I don't know any neurologists, and I didn't look up their methods because the whole point of /this/ neurologist is that he's not following the usual steps. So please don't badger me with medical terms; if any of you has ever attempted to confirm whether or not a patient is an alien god with magic invading his brain, then feel free to correct me, otherwise just accept that this is science mumbo-jumbo.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It shouldn't be this hard just to be a team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive??? What is this. Updating, how ridiculous.  
> Ahem. Sorry everybody that these delays keep happening! If I continue to vanish, feel free to send me a message on my tumblr (welcometotheoldworld) to bug me about it. I don't post too much about writing these days so probably don't bother following, but chat away! Or if you'd like to beta, that's also a thing I need.  
> Thank you to anyone who's stuck with me through all the disappearances. And sorry as well for the length of this one, the next should be longer, but everything I tried to add felt like needless filler. Also, as per recommendation, there is a brief recap in the end notes if you would like to go there and check first.

To be honest, it was a shitty feeling to be abandoning Loki alone in the neurologist's office, looking like a shaken little rabbit as he watched Tony waving his way out the door, leaving him behind. He probably felt he was being given up for experimentation or something (was he? It _was_ a SHIELD doctor after all, oh, shit, better not think about that), and with that, the little building block of acceptance that had come with the car ride had probably crumbled to bits.

But Tony was used to ignoring guilt, and that call was more than enough reason to do so.

At least it had been Cap, not Natasha, he'd gotten his daily dose of heart attack from her that morning, and Rogers, while a Presidential pain in the ass, was good at delivering bad news. And at controlling the situations that constituted it, which had probably saved his building from a second bout of destruction.

He broke through the door at a controlled rush, bracelets slipping around his wrists just in case, doubting they'd do anything about the warzone brewing to life in his lobby. At JARVIS' warning he ducked on entry, a fork lodging itself into the door within an inch of where his head had just been.

"Oh come _on!_ This is my fucking house!" Tony slammed his palm in anger on the ground, his throat aching with the volume it took to be heard over the screaming of his friends. It worked, at least, because most of them went quiet, but one couldn't be bothered.

"HE SHOULD BE DEAD! I don't fucking care what he does or doesn't remember, Thor, your fucking little baby brother deserves to be _dead_!" Clint howled, voice ripped to shreds in rage, or maybe grief.

God. He might have been an infuriating brat, but that sort of raw pain was hard to stomach, made a little easier as Tony had to hobble over the broken glass of a fifteen-thousand dollar bottle of scotch. No need to guess what had put it there, there were splinters and shards all over the room, and Clint's hand was clenched around the doorknob to his china closet, which had lost its contents along the tile. Fortunately it looked to be his last projectile, because Natasha had her grip locked around his arms, and he was in no state of mind to break away from _her_.

Thor neither needed nor was susceptible to restraints, fuming with nothing between him and a broken archer but for Cap, looking impossibly relieved at the sight of Tony. The god was a stormy contrast, but he was doing a better job of quieting it, at least enough to turn and acknowledge the guy who just so happened to, you know, own the whole place. Except being the focus of that look was hardly a positive; Clint hadn't stopped screaming, his descriptions of what he wanted to do to Loki outright sickening, and it looked like Thor was about to snap. "Where is my brother, Anthony Stark? You were with him, I know it."

"I got him in to see a doctor, he's safe, all right? And he's going to _stay_ that way, Harvey Birdman, so stop with all… this before you give yourself a heart attack, okay? I'll call it a favor."

Clint's glare turned to him, and, miraculously, he went still, slumping in Natasha's grip. Admittedly, he hadn't expected that to actually work. Maybe he'd just run out of energy, his eyes were much too hollow for any fight. "You know what he did to me. It's not _fair._ He gets a second chance, and I'm just supposed to swallow it all down and deal with it?"

"Yup, that's about right." Tony, reasonably certain now that he didn't have to fear any more destruction of personal property, made his way a little further into the room, erring away from Thor in case that temper blew its top. "Loki's here to learn a lesson, and I say we leave him alone and let him do it, so we can focus on slightly more productive tasks, like figuring out what new big bad is floating outside our orbit. If you have any complaints about second chances, Barton, then Captain America gets to save the world all on his own, while we all get to being _fair_ to the various people we've fucked over in the past."

"None of us tried to take over the world."

"Yeah? You two didn't have the power to, I practically _did_ , and Thor, by word of mouth- Rocky, correct me if I'm wrong- attempted to wipe out an entire species and/or planet." No correction coming; the god bowed his head in a moment of acceptance, not simple shame, of what had happened, where he'd gone since. "We all had our reasons. We didn't even all know what we were doing, or why it mattered, but do you really think that's going to matter to the relatives of the people we killed?"

"His eyes." There was a realization dawning, slowly, in Rogers' own as he spoke the words. "You think he was under someone's control, just like Clint was."

It wasn't exactly helpful to do it, but Tony shook his head, killing that possibility before anger for it could really build its way up. A very large part of him wanted to take Clint's side and make Loki pay for what he'd done, but the rest was sane enough to realize that it was pointless, maybe even wrong. "He didn't have the same symptoms when the Hulk beat him through my floor, and he was definitely serving his own ego up there, not someone's orders. Yeah, his eyes are green now, but my ten bucks says that's because he lost his staff. Back me up here?"

Thor didn't look entirely eager to do so, more like he wanted to break the first thing he could reach whether it deserved it or not. It was a good minute before he nodded, neck strained, fists curled. "You are correct, Anthony, at least in part. Loki was, in such a sense, in his right mind. It was the power that flooded through him from the gem that you saw reflected in his eyes." Something passed over him there, anger, fear, confusion? Hell if he knew, Tony had never been good at reading people and he was getting tired of trying. The god let mjolnir down to the ground with a surprisingly careful 'plink', only pacing on when he had straightened up again, fingers curling tight around nothing.

"If he was controlled in some other way, we do not know. That was not my brother as I knew him- he had been changed before he fell, certainly, but in the year since his disappearance… I know not what madness overtook him, nor what caused it. If you are looking for moral justification for my brother's actions you will find none. I can offer explanation at the most, and that, even, incomplete."

Thor was not the type to shy away; he met Clint's eye with a deep, harsh glare, daring his anger. "In all our thousands of years, I have never known so drastic a change to overcome my brother. There is no excuse for what he has done, but I cannot believe he would have acted as he did without some force of change. If living without his memory for a time may help to reverse that, than I shall not allow you to interfere."

Well, this was comfortable. Silence settled over, an imbalance of power that somebody probably had to pick up on and, well, it _was_ his house. Even if it was in constant shambles. "Right. Welcome home, everybody, glad we've got this out of the way, can we all make a little pact not to fight about the villains who aren't currently relevant?" Tony looked around, amused but not daunted by his less than enthusiastic response of two glares, rolled eyes, and a grimace. About the usual, then. "Thor, whatever you know about those ships, spill it."

"I have told you what I can already. Our concern is not their presence, but that Heimdall is unable to detect them in detail… and thus we have very little information." He shrugged, helpless, annoyed. "They must be powerful, or else very old. But the fact that they cloak Loki as well suggests they have some vested interest in Earth, or have interacted with him previously."

"So that should narrow it down, right?"

"Unfortunately, no. My brother is well known for his escapades across the realms, I can hardly think of anywhere he has _not_ been."

Wow, that was so incredibly helpful, Tony just couldn't believe it. "Okay, well is there any way of just _checking?_ Don't tell me you guys don't have spaceships up there in the land of 'better than thou'."

"Fury's on it," Natasha assured, a little more helpful but a lot more terrifying. "So far we haven't been able to even spot anything up there, let alone get a match on it. Not that we need to- it's relatively obvious, isn't it?"

"We're all kind of hoping it isn't," Cap said. "The Chitauri would obviously be the first choice, but they were bad enough the first time around, and that was a single ship's forces funneling through a narrow portal. If they've actually brought a fleet, Earth could be in real danger."

Still tense, but at least they were all breathing out of sync now, not like they expected the others to spring at any second. Tony deemed it safe enough to sit down- and immediately sprung up, a splinter of his end table sticking out of his upper thigh. " _Really_? My own fucking house, this is worse than Afghanistan, swear to God… The Chitauri were blasted back to their own little hell last time they messed with us. Since the thing they were looking for is now settled nicely in Asgard, I don't really see why they'd bother with us."

"Revenge?"

"They killed more of us than we did of them." Numbers, names, a memorial as wide as this building. "Unless it's Loki they're after, seeing as he royally fucked up their invasion for them _and_ lost the tesseract."

Tony'd considered it before, of course. He'd considered just about every possible option since Thor had first told them about the ships, and that one seemed the most likely, if you were living in some sort of young adult novel with no imagination. Which he probably was, considering the run of his life so far. (Okay, so maybe not _young_ adult novels, unless he started finding convenient excuses to take off his shirt in front of Cap, but novels nonetheless.) Loki was not only alone, on Earth of all places, but he was powerless, weak, and didn't even know who he was or what he might have done to earn their anger.

Somehow, he didn't think the Chitauri would consider that an excuse.

Thor moved those big blue eyes between the four of them and finally lowered himself to seating as well, relaxing back into Tony's favorite armchair as if it were his own throne. "If that is the case, they will undoubtedly come through your people in order to do it. We hampered their conquest far more than did my brother."

"Doesn't matter." Clint had extracted himself from Natasha by now, melting down to the floor like a criss-crossed snake (really, they were all sitting in turns now? _God_ ). "He… talked about this. Once or twice. I don't think he ever really knew he was doing it, but he kept me at his side twenty four seven until Germany, I picked up on a lot."

Barton had been briefed, psycho-analyzed, threatened even in Fury's attempts to figure out what had happened under Loki's commands, but as far as Tony had been informed the efforts had borne about as much fruit as a dying lemon tree. There was a whole depth of hatred and fear down there, he didn't want to hear a word of it, those demons weren't his to deal with. _Selfish._ Well, duh. It was him after all.

Everybody else had settled down to listen though, so he couldn't exactly bolt out of the room on some excuse. Not without looking like as much of an asshole as Rogers obviously thought he was, and there was just no fun at all in giving him any sort of satisfaction. Well. Maybe one, but he doubted he'd be getting _that_ opportunity. So story time with the unbalanced archer it was, then. Fun.

Clint's face was twisted up, knotted, like a grimace was in combat with a smirk or a grin, and his eyes wandered between tears and pure rage. "Son of a bitch…" He closed his eyes, and for a moment it all went away; when they opened again, something like satisfaction remained. "He'd get nightmares. I think. I wasn't supposed to leave him alone for more than a few minutes, and I kept finding him sleeping in the weirdest places, or just sitting there with his eyes shut. When he slept, he'd scream, and when he didn't, he'd spend the rest of his day flinching at any noise. I made a point of listening in, I was actually fucking _worried_ about him. I think he told me to be, and I just _was._ "

Cap waited, Thor frowned, Natasha murmured something, and Tony fidgeted like a five year old, skin crawling with the need to change subject. He could listen, sometimes that was supposed to help, but he wasn't a _sometimes_ sort of guy. "Loki hated whoever he was working with, but he was scared of him, too. He'd mutter something about wanting to hurt them, then do nothing but whimper until he woke up. He actually cried at least once, but he spent an hour yelling afterward. He was afraid of failing, and that pissed him off." He let out a huge huff, more frustration than sigh, and fell back to lie on the floor, tossing his arm up to cover his face. "His boss could be coming. I say, let them take him."

"I will not. Even if Earth were not clearly in their path of harm, I would never abandon my brother to torture," Thor growled, actually _growled_ , a great big wolf defending its pack. "No more to this threat than I did to your Director."

"Fury wanted t-" It was a problem when even Cap looked at you like you were pitifully naive, even if he did it with a bit of disapproval beneath. "Yeah shouldn't be surprised, you know what, I'm not, makes perfect sense. Not like Fury's done anything even remotely ethical since he was born. Can we just… Loki, torture, big bad in the sky. He say anything about who he was worried about? Second reminder of the day, but I probably blew them up."

"I don't know about that, maybe. Not like I sent over a message to check up on him, you know?" Clint grunted, peaking out from beneath his arm. "There were two names. One just annoyed him, that's the Other, but he was scared of the second one, Thanos. So, they've been blasted to kingdom come, who car-"

"Not if Thanos is indeed the name you heard." Thor's face had gone like rock, as hard and quiet but just as grey. "He would have escaped the explosion with ease, though I doubt he was on the ship at all. I… must speak with my father."

Okay, what, they were leaving with _that_? Thor moved quickly for all his bulk, halfway to the door before Tony's voice caught up with him. "Hey! I know it's easy to forget it, but us little mortals like to know what's going on with our planet, too. Before you run back to Asgard, how about sharing with the people actually in danger?"

"Asgard _is_ in danger. If the Mad Titan is seeking to extend his reach, we all are." That was hardly an answer, but Thor shook his head before Tony could demand anything else, mouth twisted as if in pain. "I apologize if it seems I am withholding anything from you, but I know very little myself. Odin does not fear, but Thanos is one of the few beings that my father has ever regarded as a threat. Why he never said, so I shall return to him to find out, and relay later what I have learned. Is this acceptable?"

Acceptable? Maybe, _barely_ , where was the firsthand account? If Thor could travel back and forth between realms at the drop of a dime, so could his dad, so could _they._ In the interest of honesty, the concept of seeing Asgard was ninety percent of the reason he might have complained, but still. It was getting to be exhausting, so much back and forth without doing anything, the constant itch of danger at the back of his neck that he could do no more than talk about. Tony hated having his hands tied.

"Yeah, that'll work," Cap assured. Nobody seemed to have any idea when he'd become the leader of their little gang, but nobody was questioning it, either, so Tony'd look like too much of an ass to complain. Maybe later, when he hadn't had more than his fair share of fuck-up for the week. "Just… hurry, Thor. This is more of a head's up than we had before, but we need all the time we've got."

"I know." Something had sobered Thor up since he was last here; he was quieter, more accepting, more… unsettling. "I will return before dawn. Do what you can here, but do not make contact with those ships until I know more. And... I cannot watch after him from Asgard, I beg of you to keep my brother safe," he whispered, barely, looking toward none of them in particular., and not waiting for an answer. In keeping with his dramatic fashion of the day, Thor swept out of the entry, leaving a harsh _bang!_ and sudden silence behind.

"Well, that's great." Tony kicked aside a few broken bits and pieces of his living room furnishings, the sad remnants of probably a combined fifty thousand bucks. "Comes down, gets everything stirred up to peak fuckery, then leaves. You know what? Screw him, I'm ordering pizza, and we're going to stuff ourselves sick so he doesn't get any leftovers. JARVIS!"

" _I am already on it, Sir. Do our guests have any particular preferences?"_

Cap started to say that "Tony, this really isn't-" exactly as Natasha requested "Extra cheese and mushroom", and Clint shouted something behind his muffling arm that sounded vaguely like 'wings'. "Oh, what the hell. Pepperoni's good, thanks JARVIS. Are you sure we can't get something for Thor?"

"He gets to go to space while we're stuck eating takeout in my living room."

"I was thinking pineapple and jalapeno, maybe with extra white sauce."

Tony stared, response buffering in the wake of the fact that _Captain America_ was now flashing him a cheeky grin, obviously quite proud of himself for suggesting they feed Thor crap on bread. Or else proud of how clearly he hadn't expected it. "You finally got that flagpole out of your ass, huh? Congrats. Throw one of those in the order, JARVIS, and- do I have anything to drink in this place?"

" _Excepting the bottle of Macallan that Mr. Barton unloaded upon the floor, no."_

"Then whatever liquids they've got, too." It wasn't that Tony didn't understand people- he would never have gotten this far in business if he didn't- but what he did understand he usually didn't like. Pizza, soda, maybe a terrible movie if he could find one while he got everyone settled in… it was easier than learning that they all hated each other any more than this. "We may as well waste time somehow, yeah?"

"Clint, when's the last time you ate?" 'Tasha was slowly forcing the archer up to his feet, studying him as closely as a mother bear while they rose.

He staggered, and Tony could see it wasn't all from protest. Their banter might have loosened something, but there was an empty burn in his eyes, as if something in there was still holding room for Loki to return. It was chilling, even with a fading spark of humor. "How long ago did that paper come out?"

"Jesus Christ, Clint."

"Yeah."

"I think we can safely say this isn't a waste of time, then. If Fury calls, we're in the middle of important business, and your AI can take the message." She navigated easily to the couch, despite the junkyard's worth of debris in her way and the agent slumped against her, ordering Hawkeye down to sit. "Right, JARVIS?"

" _Ignoring phone calls from Director Fury is second nature, Miss Romanov."_

Tony only shrugged, the glances his way far from surprised. "Throw that order in there, then, buddy. As big and as many as you can, I have a feeling it's gonna be a long night. Four sodas, minimum, extra tip if the guy wants to pick up some scotch on his way over that hasn't seen the bottom of my floor, a bucket of chicken for birdm-"

" _I am terribly sorry to interrupt, Sir, but there is an incoming call for you of top priority."_ Wonderful. Last time this had happened… well, _this_ had happened, and it hadn't even been a whole fucking day since.

"You know what? No. Seriously? Fine, god, fine, just put 'em through."

_Click._ " _Ah- hello? Is this Anthony Stark?"_ Fucking hell, this could not have gotten worse, could it? Clint went rigid, the near calm Natasha had worked him towards crushed by a few little words, his gaze set hard on the ceiling. Loki. Loki was _calling_ Stark? Loki had his fucking number? " _You asked me to call, if there was trouble, and… I thought I would. Do I have the right number?"_

"Yeah, you're fine. Uh, JARVIS, switch this to my personal-"

"No way." That voice; he hadn't heard it in weeks, but a part of Clint thought it must have been years, wished he'd been hearing it ever since… Fuck this. "No, no, let him continue. We'd all love to hear it."

" _Who is that?"_ Loki sounded nervous, and Clint immediately supplied an image of his hands flexing, just so, like they always had when he was anxious. God, he wanted to break those fingers one by one. " _If you are with someone, I could call back."_

"It's fine." Clint wasn't going to let them talk over him, he wasn't going to have this taken away. "Yeah, we're all old friends, we all work for the same people. To help you."

" _SHIELD."_ Loki let out a long breath, trembling away the moments. " _Well… all right. I suppose. I spoke with your neurologist- he is not there, is he?"_

"No," Stark said quickly, shooting him a scowl that fell incredibly flat. "So, he prove that I'm certifiably paranoid, or what?"

" _He proved nothing, really. He said… by all respects, he does not think there should be anything wrong with me."_ Eyes narrowing, lips tightening, shoulders down and back. " _You said I was to meet someone else, yes? I was wondering if she could give me a second opinion. Is she there with you?"_

"Ms. Foster?" Cap ventured, frowning. "It's probably best she doesn't come."

" _I do not mean to be rude, seeing as I have never met you, but why not?"_

"Because you're not safe to be around," Clint growled, all too ready to let Loki know how his big brother, the only person with any reason to give a damn about him, didn't trust him around his girlfriend. It wasn't like he thought he'd get the chance, with his "friends" already jumping in to stop him, but it was nice to try, maybe a word before 'Tasha's hand clamped down on his mouth.

The god paused on the end of the line, and Clint could imagine his expression perfectly, every quirk of bemusement, the soft downward turn of his lips that was more warning than confusion. He shoved backward, shoulder in, but he was far from his physical peak at the moment, and she dodged him easily.

" _Did I hear that correctly?"_

"Nope. Anyway, Foster might be a bit tricky to get a hold of, but I do, ah… I've got a friend who can probably give you a second opinion." Stark winced, as if sensing the vicious gaze at his back. "Tomorrow night, I can introduce you guys over dinner."

" _Their phone number would suffice, I do not wish to impose. I have bothered you enough already."_

Like hell. If it wasn't Nat, he'd have bitten her damn hand by now, Clint needed to talk, to tell this fucker that an arrow or an axe to his skull would settle his problems nicely. "No, really, I'd rather be there."

" _Ah. Well, all right. I hope they're not somebody who will be upset to see me,"_ Loki sighed. " _I do not much like having people I do not know hating me."_

What was that? Clint relaxed by degrees, steadily easing against his partner's grip, letting himself breathe a little. Now that was interesting.

"It'll be fine. So, my place or yours?"

" _You live either in California or the middle of a restoration site, and May would murder you with a spatula if I let you through the door. How about that lovely Mediterranean place on fifth?"_

"Great, perfect, eight o clock?" Stark's voice had an edge to it, constant glances back to make sure Clint had not escaped yet. He was rushing, making farewells halfway through Loki's agreement of the terms, urging JARVIS to hang up while they were still being returned, fumbled and confused.

Genius he may have been, but Stark didn't have a way for reading people if he thought there was still a reason to worry. Oh, no, Clint was happy to wait things out now; after all, Loki had just given him a far better idea. When Natasha pulled her hand away (he knew it was just how they were, but it wouldn't kill her to be  a little gentle) he rolled his neck, shrugged. "So, pizza? I have a feeling this is going to be a _great_ night."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note: That pizza they're getting for Thor? I've had it and it is amazing, especially with chicken, but nobody else seems to agree with me. I think they're just weak.
> 
> Also, I know this is the second "cliffhanger" with Clint, except it's not really meant to be a cliffhanger, it just sounded really dramatic when I wrote it out. I was going to continue to them actually eating pizza and movie watching, but this isn't an Avengers bonding fic, and it pulled too much from the focus of the story.
> 
> ((Recap of previous chapters: Loki is brought back to Asgard and makes a horrible ass of himself, threatening his mother and baby Balder, etc., so Odin knocks him on the head and sends him to Earth. He has amnesia- whoops- and when he's found by Peter and Gwen in central park, he has no idea what the flip flap is going on or who he is, so Peter takes him in, fearing something is going to come after him. They visit the Manhattan restoration site, Loki deals with injured people, and Tony sort-of-spots him down below. The teens get him a job at the cafe, and it's awesome, until he hooks up with a coworker who is obsessed with her phone enough to post a picture of him on facebook. SHIELD finds this, Tony finds Loki, chokes him, fights Peter, gets chewed out for Fury for attacking suspects in public cafes. Tony goes to apologize and organizes to make some tests w/ Loki, and after they part from a chat meets Steve, who saw about Loki and flew in. They argue morals, Natasha calls to tell them Clint's gone after Loki, they freak out, chase Clint, find Thor's gotten there first. Thor informs them Loki is hidden from Heimdall's sight by some weird power, and also there are ships outside Earth's orbit that are also hidden. No big deal. Tony goes and brings Loki to a neurologist, who can't figure out the reason for all these awful headaches he's been having, so Loki decides to call Tony. Also it's almost Christmas.))


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, another long wait guys, sorry! Not as long as before though, and the chapter's pretty lengthy, so hopefully that helps. And on topic of the pairing, I swear we'll be getting to that soon, though everyone has a lot to work through first.
> 
> Also, disclaimer: I don't have a beta, so if you notice errors in continuity or spelling please feel free to tell me (either here or on my tumblr "itsgodofthunderforareason"). If anyone is interested in future chapter beta-ing, I'd love to hear from you!

(AN: Sorry for the delay, folks!)

Morning brought with it a broken heater, eight inches of snow, and two hours spent fumbling with machinery and shovels to solve each accordingly. May had tried to insist that Loki not trouble himself ("Let Peter deal with it, it'll do him some good." "Hey, now!") but the attempts were futile- he was not going to start assessing why, but he was craving work, use. Needing to do  _something_  while he waited for another unfortunate evening in Tony Stark's company.

Which was all the more reason to be making May happy: she was going to be livid, speaking conservatively, when he left to meet with the man again. It felt cruel to even think of it, sitting here in her living room sipping hot chocolate and bundled beneath one of her blankets. Selfish. But he had to know, didn't he? There was nothing wrong with  _that._  The doctor was what he was going for anyway, it wasn't as though he were actively seeking out the man who had done him harm (even if he seemed to know so much,  _Loki's_  secrets buried beneath his flippant exterior). He only wanted to do away with these headaches.

He swallowed down another dose of the medicine he'd been left with for the same, absently wondering if there was any effect beyond making him hope he was getting better. "Are you supposed to have that stuff with dairy?" Peter wondered, raising an eyebrow as Loki washed the taste of chemicals away with another swig of cocoa. "I thought it made it weaker."

"It might, but I wasn't told  _not_  to." Which was permission enough, wasn't it? "And I should hardly delay such a delicious drink even if it did."

"I can always whip up something with soy, if this is going to make you sicker," May offered. Her concern stung, like his impending betrayal of it was already rising up against him. "I wish you had told me about those headaches, young man. We could have been working on them for weeks."

"They seemed perfectly reasonable," Loki defended, drumming his fingers nervously against his mug. "And that doctor said they will be gone before too long, if I take this regularly, so no harm done."

The lie came easily, before he'd even planned it out. He held his breath, shame bubbling up, prepared to apologize profusely as May… smiled in relief and told him he had better be sure to take it, then (though she still had a few choice words in mind for the doctor himself). Well. Loki was certain he had lied now and then since waking, but it had only been through omission hadn't it? He'd never even considered  _telling_  her something that wasn't true… But surely Peter had sensed the falsehood.

No. The boy looked equally as pleased with this move, both of them palpably relieved that his pain would, apparently, soon be coming to an end.

Hm.

"He was ordering filled a second prescription for me, actually. I did not want to worry you with stepping out again, but it is supposed to speed things on a little," Loki tested. Neither of them seemed suspicious, and while May was far from pleased she was nowhere near as angry as she would be if he told her he needed to meet with Stark that evening. For her own good. "You did not seem to trust him last evening, which I perfectly understand, but-"

"I only worried because you drove off with Anthony Stark without anybody there to protect you." She frowned, genuine concern crinkling her eyes at the corners. "You are a grown man. You may be in a very unusual situation, but I could hardly stop you from going to pick up your medicine."

"You probably could," Peter countered. "I mean look at him, he's kind of pathetic. No offense."

"What else could that possibly intend but offense?"

"Fact?"

"This from the boy who whined for an hour about having to stand in the snow."

"Play nice, you two," May scolded calmly, almost reflexively. She was smiling again, old wrinkles of laughter grooved into the skin, but the newer lines of worry were there too. "Is this doctor sending your prescription somewhere local? I was going to run a few errands, I'm sure I could pick it up on the way back."

"No, his practice is rather… unorthodox as you know, I was actually to meet him to pick it up tonight." Loki watched, carefully, for any signs of doubt and felt a strange thrill when he realized there were none.

How incredibly simple. It was almost intoxicating, realizing what power he had in those few simple words, how much he could soothe their concerns- and so  _easily._  As natural as speaking the truth had ever been, perhaps even more so; he hadn't had to pick and choose or fret over outcomes, merely speak. He felt a little badly about deceiving them at all of course, but if it worked to their advantage as well as his own then what was the harm?

There was none, not that he could see it. Loki reclined back slowly into his chair and grinned at the realization, pretending it was for one of Peter's tacky jokes.

At precisely eight twenty five Loki stepped through the doors of "ilili"'s, brushing a small pile of snow off his shoulders on his way to avoid melting all over the expensive flooring. Warm spices and soft music eased over him, beckoning in weary travelers from the storm outside, and even if he hardly felt the cold he felt much better after a deep breath of it all.

By some small blessing the crowd for the evening was minimal. Only a weak din filtered in from the dining area, and in the empty lobby there was silence but for the bored tapping of the hostess' foot. "Excuse me?" She seemed almost as annoyed to have a customer as she had been not to- until she'd gotten a good look. Her eyes went wide, recovered quickly, and plump, dark lips spread into a nervous smile.

"I think I know who you're here for. Your party is waiting for you, sir, if you would please follow me?" She invited, already leading him eagerly through the archway.

Loki paid little attention to the anxious attitude; "party", she had said, not "friend", which meant the doctor had likely already arrived as well. He hoped so, he had after all come late intentionally to avoid being alone with Stark, but at least he was familiar. Something about meeting one of the man's acquaintances… it set his heart pounding.

By the time they made it through the room, Loki's breath was coming quick, his hands shaking minutely but persistently, blood so frantic and focused that his fingers were growing cold.  _Peter is not here to protect you._  He should not have been looking to a child to save him, anyway. What -who- ever waited for him beside Stark was  _his_ issue to deal with, nothing more. The two men were seated with at least a table between them and any other patrons on all sides, Stark himself gesturing and rambling animatedly from the far end, a tussle of dark, curled hair across from him. An empty chair between them, for Loki to put himself between the man who had already attacked him and the one whose very thought made his blood sing in fear.

It was a  _dinner_ , he could surely handle that much, could he not? "I apologize for being so late," Loki greeted as the distance shrank. "I still get a little lost taking the subway alone."

Alerted, both men turned to face him. Loki's eyes were for one only however, and as the stranger turned he held his breath, expecting for reasons he could not place another sudden bolt of pain through his head.

There was none. Brown hair, thin glasses, a buttoned shirt and a simple face, almost extraordinarily average- Loki noted it all before he realized he had felt no more fear. No shock as their eyes met. It was somewhat… anticlimactic, but by far preferable to the expectation. The man gave him a tight smile and turned away before Loki could offer a hand, and Stark leaped to his feet not quite quick enough to cover the uncomfortable silence.

"Next time call a cab. You'll still be late trying to hail one, but at least you can blame someone else. Loki, Dr. Bruce Banner. Bruce, Loki." Loki stared, waiting for the other man to reply, but he remained fixated on his glass of water. "Well, I can see you two are just gonna be the fastest of friends. Take a seat, would you?"

Loki did, cautiously. Bruce wasn't exactly tense, but he was quite obviously avoiding eye contact, going so far as to turn sharply away when Loki reached for a bit of bread. "Tony said you've been having trouble with headaches," he wondered (seemingly of the tablecloth).

"I have." Loki spread unwanted butter across his bread simply for want of something to do with his nervous hands, cleared his throat. "I spoke with one of SHIELD's experts already, but they could tell me next to nothing. I was hoping for a second opinion and…"

"Here we are?" Bruce's tone was cordial, and his body at ease if he would only turn his head. "I feel obligated to warn you, I'm not a neurologist. My doctorate isn't even actually in medicine, though I've been practicing for awhile now. It's incredibly likely I won't be able to tell you anything."

 _I imagine it would be much easier if you would look at me, wouldn't it?_ "I know that. The part I care about, anyway. But Tony seemed to think it worth asking."

Using the man's nickname felt foreign on his tongue, but it got Stark's attention anyway. He stopped pretending to be invested in his menu and leaned inward, elbows resting on the table. "Yeah, well, a little extra input can't hurt. And Bruce is an expert in all things weird, which you definitely are,  _and_  he likes Mediterranean food. It's a win-win."

"'All things weird', hm? Is  _that_ what your doctorate says?"

"Not far off, actually."

Before Loki could ask what it really was (quite eagerly, he was hoping eventually to enroll and such a degree sounded immensely tempting) a waiter slipped over to ask for their drink orders. Bruce took tea, Stark wine, and Loki would have been content with water if the man hadn't been apparently aghast at the thought, and ordered him a beer instead. Beer, he'd never even  _had_  beer.

"And are you all ready to order, or would you like another minute?" The waiter wondered, glancing at three closed turned to him, and Bruce spared a quick glance, so Loki hastened to assure them that he knew what he liked, if they had chosen.

"I'll take the kale fattoush," Bruce requested, offering his menu over to Stark, who was nearest the waiter.

Loki followed the precedent, halfway uncertain. "The black iron shrimp, please."

"And I'll have the beef shawarma." The oaf's lips spread into a childish grin at this, apparently delighted at himself for some joke that was beyond Loki. Bruce was involved, whatever it was, though judging by his expression he did not approve. "What? I'm in the mood."

Right, well, whatever that meant. "I'll have those right out," the waiter promised softly, leaning over Stark's shoulder to accept the menus, which to Loki seemed a bit inconvenient. "If you would like anything else, feel free to wave me over."

He departed, leaving Loki to debate a method of politely reintroducing the topic of Bruce's qualifications. "I am very sorry if it is inconvenient for you to have come all the way out here, Doctor. I would have happily met you at your practice, had I known where it is."

"Oh, I don't really have one. In the country, anyway. But don't worry, I actually do know what I'm doing. Headaches aren't the most definite symptom in the world, and sometimes what's causing them won't show up on a machine right away, or unless you're looking for something specific. I figured we'll go over the most likely issues, at least."

Reasonable enough; it was what every doctor he had spoken with so far had done, anyway. "Of course. I'll answer whatever you need."

"Any problems with your vision? Either during the headaches or in general?"

"No, not usually. Well… when they are at their worst things have gone black, before. But only rarely, and that was awhile back. And the pain can make things blur." Was that bad? None of SHIELD's people had asked about his eyes.

"Do you ever get nauseas out of nowhere? A little stomach pain is fine, but I need to know if you've ever vomited, or felt like you might, without any reason."

Another new one. "No."

Bruce wasn't writing anything down, nor consulting any possibilities; it didn't seem entirely professional to look distractedly about and record your patient's responses with nothing but a nod. "This might be a given, but any dizziness, loss of balance? I, ah, got the memory part already."

"If I tire myself."

He nodded, committing this, one would hope, to his own memory. "Now this might have been a little harder for you to have noticed, so we can pick it apart if we need to. Have you had any experience with seizures? You might have blacked out, lost control of your breathing, or experienced involuntary muscle movement." For the first time, Bruce met and kept his gaze; perhaps it was meant to relax, the question for more frightening than the previous, but it did quite the opposite. Loki's heart fumbled and quickened, and he found himself desperately searching his eyes without knowing quite what  _for._  "I can go into a little more detail-"

" _No._  I- no, that is fine. I've had a bit of all of that, but only when I exhaust myself." Considering he'd had his skull bashed in, Loki thought the responses perfectly reasonable. He hadn't associated any of it with  _seizure._  "Is there something… specific you are looking for?"

"Yes," Bruce admitted, fiddling with his glasses. This was clearly news to Stark, whose eyebrows flew up to his hairline, looking almost offended to have been left out. "Do you want to know what?"

Well, he knew  _that_  quickly enough. "No. Not until you are sure." He'd had enough to worry about without possibilities, didn't he? Let the doctor confirm before he started filling his mind with medical nightmares.

"Hey, what if  _I_  want to know?" Stark whined; even from their brief history, Loki recognized the tone as joking, and let the question pass. "Call it a referral fee."

"No."

"Ouch."

"Anyway," Bruce continued, turning away from his friend's offense, "I can't be definite until I've reviewed SHIELD's tests or run my own, which could take me some time. Considering their public image is now invested in your health you can probably count on a rush order, though. It pays to be popular."

"Is that what we're calling it?" Loki wondered, glanced toward Stark, and grinned. "I  _knew_  you only choked me because you liked me. How sweet."

"I am deeply concerned for your perception of romance."

"Excuse me, sirs, I have your drinks." The waiter. All three of them looked up, as surprised as if they had collectively forgotten that they were in a restaurant at all. Though taken aback, the man recovered composure quickly and set about placing their orders- he had arrived at Bruce's right shoulder, yet went first to Stark, and again Loki had to wonder at the inconvenience of it.

It wasn't until he left them, promising to bring their food as quickly as possible, that Loki spotted the way his gaze lingered, caught his teeth slightly between his lips in a smile that did not much belong in a service setting. And the darkened eyes, steady walk, liquid voice; it would have been impossible not to recognize it, considering how often  _he_  did it. "Is our waiter… flirting with you?"

"Yup," the engineer confidently replied, turning eagerly toward his drink. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"Of course not. I just presumed  _you_  would."

"Hey, you know what they say, there's no such thing as bad flirting. Okay there is, but I thought he was doing okay." Was that genuine interest in Stark's eye? Bruce was rolling his own, so Loki could only assume so.

"I thought you were involved with women?"

"I go both ways; frequently, might I add. I'd be ten times richer if I put a toll on my bedroom door- not a bad idea actually…"

"Oh?" That was an interesting development. It seemed basic logic- liking coffee had not put him off tea, blonds off brunettes, tall girls off short- yet he'd not even entertained the possibility. Suddenly the other half of the room seemed  _much_  more interesting. "And is this a common sort of attraction, or are-"

"Guys?" Bruce cleared his throat, raised his hand and gave his fingers a little wave. "I, ah, don't mean to interrupt this sexual awakening, but I still do have work to do with you."

Loki had nearly forgotten why he was here, curse his distraction. Hoping he would be forgiven the slight rudeness (honestly, he could endure just as well if he was not) he leaned back in toward the proper focus of his attention, apologizing with a winning smile. It did not appear to be working, rather the opposite; Bruce had been merely amused before, and now displeased, unsettled. "My apologies, I do tend to… stray, a little."

"More or less than normal, would you think?" That was probably a relevant question, Loki suspected Bruce rarely asked any that were not, but still it threw him off guard.

Quick to get back into things, was he? "I have little comparison. Peter can hardly keep to a topic for more than five minutes, and we are constantly being interrupted at the cafe. Things tend to jump about."

Bruce nodded, hopefully retaining all this, and on they went. His questions became more detailed over time, so that when their food finally came Loki's answers were nearly three minutes long, describing entire days or investigating sensations as eloquently as was within his power while also attempting to juggle Stark's incessant interventions. If they managed to make some progress despite all this he had no idea, as he left them hours later with no more knowledge than before what the purpose of it all had been; except the vague concept of a diagnosis, of course.

Loki was feeling exhausted by the end of it, as though his mouth and brain both were stuffed full of cotton, barely able to drag himself from the restaurant. The food was delicious, of course, though expensive… and he'd been so tired that he'd gone and made an absolute ass of himself when the check came.

"Here, I've got that," Stark, the billionaire megalomaniac, had reached immediately for the bill, delighted to offer, and Loki had stopped him immediately. Normal enough; he had a job, he had money, he would pay for his own food.

"I would rather-"

"No, seriously, King Henry, I can cover it-"

"I don't want you to." And it had been so blunt, so earnest. Loki hadn't been entirely sure what he meant to express in the sentiment, but it hadn't been to cause a flash of offense and an extended, stifling silence across the table.

He groaned at the memory, even reassured by how readily Stark had shaken it off and welcomed him to pay his portion, made jokes about going dutch on their next "date", if he wasn't allowed to be old fashioned. The man had so little tact that Loki was willing to bet he would happily let any other's slip ups pass, but Bruce's eyes had been almost as wide as the rims of his glasses, however quickly he tried to hide it.

 _God._  Loki thumped his head against the doorway with a long groan of embarrassment as he fiddled it open, letting the wood halfway carry him through with its inward push. It was dark in here, Peter and May must both have gone to sleep. Good. He just wanted to feel sorry for himself for a half hour or so and go to bed, he had no energy for conversation.

So, without bothering to flick on a light (he tended to see better without them, anyway) Loki stumbled his way through the quiet apartment in search of his room, praying he would soon at least have an answer to these headaches. He could do so much  _more_  if he did not have to worry about fainting every time he worked up a sweat. Get a real job, maybe some schooling, find a place of his own and shower May in the infinite gratitude she deserved for all she had done… Well, he could dream all he liked, but he'd do that better asleep, so let rest come first.

A testament to his exhaustion, Loki was halfway to his bed before he realized someone else was already in it.

-

Going back to the Tower would have been too much for the Big Guy to handle, after seeing Loki for nearly two hours, so it was quickly settled that they would take their talk to the city. Sure, it wasn't private, and Bruce got a little edgy in crowds, but with two cups of herbal tea (blasphemy, seriously, he was going to die from caffeine withdrawal) and the miraculous inconspicuousness of a dark jacket and some glasses they had a relatively comfortable night ahead of them.

If you could get past the topic of choice, and the fact that there was an alien army floating somewhere above their heads led by a guy that even  _Thor_  was wary of. Typical Tuesday.

"I really can't even give you reasonable speculation," Bruce protested, to Tony's fourth whining demand for a conclusion on the evening's interrogation. "Nothing about this or him makes for a normal case. He's not human, or Asgardian, or even typically Jotun, especially not if Odin's put some spell on him to make him mortal. I didn't really train in the heavily modified physiology of frost giants with dwarfism."

"Okay, sure, but we're assuming you can err on the side of human here. So far his tests have all come back as a mostly-normal homosapien, ignoring the fact that he's… not. Simplicity's sake."

"Fair enough. Then he's still recently recovered from an incredible amount of trauma to the skull, and any, ah, irregularities might just be from that." Bruce didn't look like he expected that was the case, though neither of them would do anything as ridiculous as disregard the possibility. "So, really, you should wait until I can get a real test done. You'll just be mad if anything I tell you turns out to be irrelevant."

"Yeah, well, not as mad as I will be if it turns out to  _not_  be and we get killed by an alien army because of it." 'Tasha'd gotten the results back from SHIELD, and they were far from promising: rather, they were nonexistent. They hadn't been able to get sights on anything floating around out there, and while they had a wide collection of agents now on the task of detecting alien activity Tony couldn't help feeling it would be too late, by the time there was any, to do anything about it.

What they needed was a defense plan that consisted of a little more than six people running aimlessly around attempting to protect the entire planet, while one of them wasn't even on it eighty percent of the time. Preferably something less prone to bullets and better equipped for immediate action, but that was a project for another time. Right now they needed to make due with what they had.

And if most of that was just speculation, than at least they could gather up more of it. "And you're just never going to shut up about this. Okay, fine. I think the Chitauri might have put something in his head," Bruce, ever-so-clear, concluded.

"Any chance of putting that in a way that doesn't make me want to hand you an aluminum hat and whip out the tape recorder?"

"He  _is_  an alien, Tony, it's not some abductee conspiracy theory," he countered, fairly enough. "We know they had some way of communicating with each other while Loki was on Earth, and we've assumed he was just using the staff. But in that case he could have been relaying orders to Clint while they were apart- or, worse, taking over minds without having to tap anyone first. I can't claim to understand magic, so maybe they just had some sort of spell set up and this whole night was wasted, but I doubt it. Whether it's magical or physical I'm guessing they left something in his brain to open up that link."

"Which is also giving off signals that block out that guy's sight- what was his name, Mydol?"

" _Heimdall._ "

"That is  _much_  better."

Bruce shot him a quick look of 'Tony-you-need-to-shut-up' (™ Pepper Potts) and continued on, equipped with all the good sense needed to not offer him a further response. "And as you've mentioned already, Odin has made Loki mortal. Not entirely human, but not as durable or as… mystically inclined as before. Something put into his old body may not function properly in this one."

Hence the headaches, if the recent concussion wasn't doing that well enough. But Bruce's questions had been targeted, precise and purposeful; he had a specific diagnosis in mind, and unless he'd become an expert on Chitauri mind magic in the last few weeks then there had to be more to it. "You know medicine isn't my expertise- it  _could_  be, give me a few hours- so what is it?"

"It sounds like this… thing could be causing his brain to function improperly. It's sending its own signals so the normal processes are being improperly rewired, and possibly irritating the tissue enough to build up pressure against his skull."

Oh. It put a lot in perspective: loss of memory (sustained), vision troubles, weakness, that fairly blatant display of failed social awareness towards the end there. "So instead of sending messages, the Chitauri are just fucking with his brainwaves? You'd think they'd've realized by now that the call's not getting through. Do aliens not have voicemail? Sounds more convenient than telling his head to stop working right."

"It's a little more than that." Bruce had finished his tea by now; his fingers were drumming continuously against the edge of the cup, giving their walk the backdrop of a hollow echo. A passerby glared at the noise, then began to gape as she recognized Tony. He gave her a quick wave and a wink so she'd at least have something to write home about and turned them down another street, back to blessed privacy. "I was looking for the symptoms of a brain tumor, Tony. If there isn't something in his head functioning like one then he still could actually  _have_ one, and either way he'll need an MRI."

Tony didn't need a medical license to know what that could mean; for a human, anyway, which he had made quite clear on his first trip he was not. But Loki was showing nearly the fragility of their kind in everything else, wasn't he? So maybe something like oh, say, brain cancer  _could_  kill him. Fuck.

 _Excuse me, now? Why the hell does it matter?_  Odin could always just reverse his mojo and shove Loki back in an Asgardian cage- make all their lives easier anyway- and even if he didn't it was  _Loki_ , wasn't it? Of course the concepts bothered him, he wasn't and hadn't ever been arguing for the guy's death, but actively wanting him, wanting Loki, to be alive and well was… weird. Fucker wasn't so bad when he didn't have his memory, he'd been almost  _fun._

"I'll get him the test." Yeah, small steps, that much he could do easily even if he did have a potential alien invasion to worry about. High potential, if they really  _were_ trying to contact Loki again. "We should probably get back to the tower, now. Everyone'll be glad to see you, and if Clint hasn't torn the place to pieces you can finally have an actual conversation with him."

-

"Hey," the man greeted, his teeth flashing white and sharp in reflection of the thin moonlight, "you were out pretty late, there. Don't you have a curfew or something?"

He was stretched out so easily across the bed, head propped up on folded arms against Loki's pillow, one leg bent and the other kicked out to ruffle the comforter, which he so liked to keep neat, into a heap at the edge. One of his books had been shoved off the mattress to fall cover-bent on the ground, center pages folded pitifully in on themselves. Numbly, he bent to lift it, smoothing the creases; they would stain, dark grooves and curves, irreversible marks in the paper. A line down the spine, like a scar. He followed it with one finger, found his hand was shaking, and slowly turned his gaze upward once more.

The man was watching him, his grin so wide it seemed in danger of splitting his face. He was not very large, and he seemed to be unarmed, though there could have been anything hiding in that coat. He'd have to reach for it, give Loki time enough at least to run, or wake Peter with a shout… and, with this small assurance, he found he could not do either right away, no, not while he still had some relative safety and no idea why the man was here.

"Who are you?" He asked, once it became quite clear he would have to say  _something_  to break the silence. "And how did you get in here?"

"Window. Picked the lock." A gesture, revealing the thing still half open, snow gathering on the sill. "My name's Clint Barton, but don't feel bad about forgetting. You didn't use it a whole lot."

"We've met." It might have been a question, if not for the shimmer in his eyes. It was predatory, and far too personal, lacking Stark's paranoid happenstance from the cafe. Wary, Loki took a step back, making no move to hide it- he was being watched too closely for that- and Barton allowed it, grinning still. "And why are you here?"

"Because I heard you're memories are acting up, and we can't have  _that._  I'm gonna help clear things up." Barton swung his legs in an arch, from reclining to sitting over the edge of the bed in a second. "We spoke on the phone a bit yesterday, remember? And you made that plan with Stark to go get checked by yet another doctor, which is just a waste of both of your time. He knows what you are, so do the rest of us. But they want to keep secrets; it's sort of our job, usually."

 _Stark knows._  It was so easy to believe, but lying was even easier, and this man had just admitted to being very good at that. "And what, pray tell, do you think I am?"

Get the lie out of him, then distinguish the truth. Barton seemed more than willing, finally rising with the question as though his excitement to respond would not let him sit idle. "Oh, that's easy. You're a monster," he explained. "And a murderer, a terrorist, and would-be-dictator. I usually assume a few of those go together, but people like their labels, you know?"

He was closer now- Loki flinched but couldn't move away, his legs had become impossibly heavy. "Not that I expect you to buy it without proof. I barely could. So here you go, everything about you worth knowing, it's pretty convenient."

A file, slipped from his jacket in a movement so smooth it was almost invisible. Loki didn't notice his own reach until the thing was in his hands, staring down at a crisp stamp and his own name, neatly printed in dark red ink.  _CLASSIFIED._  His touch traced along the cliche, remarkably steady. "What is this?"

"SHIELD's file on you. That logo at the top is ours, and so's the information in there, collected when  _you_  decided to take over the world. But you've got to have figured that out by now, seriously," Barton laughed, looking absolutely delighted by Loki's uncertainty. "The denial is strong with this one."

"I am  _human._  And you are a liar." The file remained closed, and with shaking hands he shoved it outward, willing this hateful stranger to take it and be gone. Stark had dismissed this possibility, hadn't he? A mistake, that this man must have heard about, decided for whatever reason to fabricate some evidence for to- to torment him, but  _why?_  "Take it."

"Look inside."

"I will not humor your ridiculous taunts."

" _Look._ "

That was not a suggestion any longer. Loki sucked in a breath to call for help, and choked on it as a cold point pressed up against his stomach. Oh, god. "Well?" Barton goaded, impatiently waving his free hand as the other dug in the tip of his knife, snagging fabric.

No, not a knife, there was a smooth pipe of wood disappearing into his grip, feathered at the base. An  _arrow._  This man was absolutely insane, that had to be it. Insane and very likely to kill him if he didn't cooperate, but why wouldn't he be if he  _did_? He could just stab him through and leave him there to bleed out on the rug for Peter to find in the morning.

Fuck, this was  _ridiculous._  Loki saw spots creeping across his vision before he finally allowed himself to breathe, and then it was trembling, tight, he didn't want to die, he didn't- what had he done to this man, why would someone want to  _do_  this to him?

"Okay," he gasped, managing not quite to sob. Somehow he felt Barton would enjoy that far too much. "I will look, but not until you have moved."

He half expected the condition to send his guts spilling to the floor, but the invader stepped smoothly away, and the arrow even vanished back into his coat. A sign of good faith, if Loki hadn't seen how quickly it could reappear. It was just a file. Just some words, possibly a shopped picture or two, so why did he fear it almost as much as that point?

Almost. Loki flipped it open quickly, like it might bite if he delayed, and was presented with no more than a photo of himself thoroughly passed out in Anna's bed. Why in hell would someone have printed this? He should've asked her to delete the fucking thing, he was half naked and the state of his hair was simply embarrassing. Blackmail, sure. But proof of murder?

There was a clipped page to the back, his name at the top and three bulky paragraphs describing the facial-recognition techniques that had led them to it, recommending that, "as his identity is all but confirmed, the Initiative should be deployed immediately". Was this all? Barton had, what, typed up on some official paper and stalked his likeness online, barged in here to frighten him? A glance upward that found the man's grin returning, sparkling confidence, suggested there was more.

Whether this man was out of his mind or not Loki did not want to look on. Let someone else toil in the production of Barton's madness, he had not the time nor the mind for it. He was so tired, of so much, could he not simply be let be? Not until he was done, anyway.  _Flip._ Shots of weapons, of Manhattan, all of it in ruins.  _Flip._  Platforms flying through the air, a gold-clad figure riding the only one even nearly in focus, flames bursting and shattering the world around them.  _Flip._

He was seeing the Battle of New York. There had been footage of it once, Peter claimed, but all found and dealt with, nothing but whispers in their wake. And yet here he was, watching the end of so many lives shot by shot, the impossibility of a hole ripped through the sky constructed before him.

Film could do it well enough. Loki knew this could easily be nothing more than digital production on page, but the mere thought that any might be true was… sobering. The black hole had been confirmed, the aliens even more so; he'd seen the bodies himself, when two had been dug from the rubble, where this SHIELD had not swept them away. These creatures were the mirror image of those, he was certain of it. Loki could never forget those faces, the sickening sight of something so nearly human.  _Flip._

And there he was. Unrecognizable, at first, wearing golden armor and a look of sadistic pleasure as the city crumbled below him, but that was his face, his eyes. A touched image, someone's form made to match his own? Or such a likeness that even Stark in that clever suit had been unable to distinguish? Not him.

 _It's alright. Just breathe._  In, out. Simple, or at least it should have been. Loki flinched as his face appeared again, distorted into a bloody rage and a flurry of movement, Stark's tower crumbling at his feet. What could Barton possibly hope to gain from this? Why had he made this, brought it to him? Again, there he was, it looked so like him, even with his face covered in metal and blood.

Those cuts… Loki's fingers were cold against his face, pressed to the faded outline of a scar that had once marred his forehead aligned to the millimeter with the fresh wound worn in the photograph. Those had healed, before Stark had caught him, revealed his face to the world.

Barton could have been the one to attack him. Whatever the end, and whatever he intended to do now, Loki prayed that was the case.

God be damned, he couldn't  _do_  this anymore. "I don't know what you expect me to do with all this, unless you are looking for critique on a graphic design portfolio. In which case, your editing is commendable, and I wish you luck in your endeavors but if you would please just-"

"Keep. Going."

Oh. Loki nodded, drawing the file slowly back to himself, throat constricted on even the hope of an argument against Barton's outrage. He didn't want to read anymore. The file was beginning to burn in his grasp, a horrible, painful weight, he was going to be sick if he turned another page.

But he did. It slipped from his fingers twice before they were still enough to move it, and quivered into half a blur; not so much of one that it could disguise Barton's face, however. Barton, at the side of that distorted Loki, declared "Compromised" by a lengthy report. Compromised how? His eyes swam at the title, refused to look any further, the words blurring and fleeing his comprehension.

"What is this?" He pleaded, burst from his lips. "I don't know what you want from me,  _please._  Did I anger you somehow? Do something to you? I do not remember any of it, but I am sorry."

They were companions, in these shots. Barton could have been an ally, or the sole culprit, seeking someone either to share his blame or revenge for failing in their plans. Their- no, he'd done  _nothing._ "Look, I get it, you're pathetic, but there's only so long this can go on. That's all  _on you._  And this? Me, running around like your fuckin' lapdog?" He closed the distance once again, forcing the paper up against Loki's chest, twice jabbing his finger against the photographs, leaving his image blotted and crinkled. "That's why we're doing this. Why  _you_  don't get the fucking luxury of living in ignorance when I can't go a night without remembering all the friends you made me kill."

"I made you? That is completely ridiculous, I couldn't-" Loki didn't simply stop; he gagged on the shock, a painful nausea roiling up because those words felt too familiar. The slipped out with the easy grace of his morning's tales, more natural than his pleas.  _Liar, liar._  "I am not a killer."

Fear was crawling into his vision, leaving trails of inky black at the rims until his world had narrowed to a fine point- Barton, the file. "Sure you're not." The steady hand reaching forward, bringing forth a new affliction; the frightened accounts of observers, and a lifeless man's punctured eye socket seeping blood onto the marble floor.

"Remember him?" No, he didn't, but he remembered- oh, god, it was like he could feel the blood against his hands, hot and fierce. "No. But we're making progress, huh? Fine, yeah. Now how about  _him_?"

There was more to be seen, but Barton tore it all aside and flipped near to the end before returning the sight to Loki, who was shaking so badly it had begun to hurt. (He was up against the wall now, leaning back for space and air, to try and put himself somewhere, anywhere, else.) There was a great deal of clutter in this section, but the photo was what he was meant to see, and his eyes flew to it immediately, uncooperative.

A man lying under stark light, a cold glimmer on pale skin, still and clinical. He did not know him, he truly didn't, not his face or his name, but he knew his wound. A clean cut through the heart, wide and freshly slit, a quick slide through flesh and bone with just the right amount of resistance to satisfy. Something so simply, so easy, to send gore and lifeblood to the ground, to- and he'd  _liked_  it- his stomach was churning but there was pleasure at the core of it oh god he wanted it enjoyed it he'd  _done_  it.

Loki felt himself slide to the floor, but was blind and deaf to the file falling from his hands, Barton's boots scraping against the window frame on his way out, to anything but his own unrelenting sobs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it had to happen eventually, didn't it? Sorry for that quick transition in the middle, by the way. Anything else felt like filler and I wanted a sense of flashing time around, but it might just have been confusing. Should I maybe add a break somewhere in there?
> 
> And in preparation for the comments- yes, Clint is being an asshole but can we really blame him?


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One day I swear I will actually update on a reasonable schedule. (For future fic, I'm not going to start posting anything until I have a rough draft of the entirety prepared.) A lot of my enthusiasm for Marvel has... dimmed lately, so it's gotten harder to write these, but I promise I haven't abandoned it!

The night was long, even by his standards. Bruce had a few hours’ worth of catching up to do, and then Thor’s return to Earth brought with it a long briefing that basically amounted to “Thanos is big, and dangerous, and very very bad, and also has what may be a weird death fetish but no Tony that’s really not the problem here”. Then it was an hour or two of calming him down after they revealed that his little brother _might_ have a pesudo-tumor from Chitauri magic.

It wasn’t as simple as Tony’d hoped; Odin couldn’t restore his strength- literally, _couldn’t_ , by some inane magic principle- until he’d thoroughly reconciled his crimes, so Loki was on his own. Sort of. Since the Chitauri were probably trying to contact him, it was in their best interest to keep an eye on what he did and how safe he was, just in case they used him to get to Earth somehow or, worse, managed to reawaken both his magic and his rage.

“Time, buddy?” Tony wondered of JARVIS, setting his third empty mug down over another line of code.

 _“Just past six in the morning, Sir. The others are still in their beds, except for Mr. Rogers who I believe has gone grocery shopping after assessing the pitiful states of your kitchen.”_ Six, huh? He could have saved himself this exhaustion if he’d just woken up a little later, but yeah, that wasn’t going to happen after that night. Too much to think about, too much to do, no idea how to do it.

Coffee, needed more of that. He snatched up his tablet on his way out, transferring the page over so he could keep up his work as he staggered into the kitchen, filled his mug, and thumped back to the elevator. _Whatever they’re hiding with has got to have some basis in stealth tech._ _Magic is just advanced science, if_ Thor _can figure this out, I can._ Okay, not a fair comparison considering the god had stepped into here and practically groaned over his “gratuitously outdated technology”, only unable to use it because it was apparently _so_ clunky compared to what he was used to.

That might have something to do with why he was still up, actually. Tony was many things, spiteful was easily one of them.

He was about to step into the elevator when the doorbell rang, a sort of pitiful fumbling _ding_. Huh. Probably something wrong with that, he’d have to check the wiring; thing didn’t exactly get tested out too often, that might have been its first run since the attack. “I swear to god, if you are selling something that is not Thin Mints, I _will_ sick Black Widow on you.”

They were always running out of things on the repair site, and he had plenty of supplies and more-than-able bodied people available if needed. So, expecting a volunteer, Tony fumbled his tablet and coffee cup into one hand so he could open the door with the other.

Not a worker, but Loki. The god had never come to _him_ before, at least not without notice, so it took him a long moment to process the fact that he was a) there, and b) looked like death on his feet. “Whoa, Dracula, you get any sleep last night or-”

“ _You._ ” Loki took a step forward and Tony one stumbling back; Jesus, the look in his eyes. Like there was a real glint of red somewhere in there. _Suit. I need my suit, tell the others._ “You _knew_.”

Knew? Yeah, something was off here, that wasn’t violent that was… desperate. “I think we might be on different pages here.” Tony was backing up still, but less out of fear. He needed to lure Loki firmly into the tower before anybody could see him, get that door bolted and see him safely shut in here. With a look like that the god was bound to get himself into some serious harm.

“You lied to me.” Not wrong, admittedly. Still not helpful. Looking nearer Loki’s eyes _were_ red, shot with the remnants of tears. Could nothing just be _simple_ with his life? “All this time you knew what I am- what I _did._ ”

Oh, fuck. Tony should have been feeling a million rational things (like maybe fear, or panic) instead of pity, but there it was. He’d always been wondering if Loki was as appalled by the crimes he was accused of as he’d acted at the café, or if it was all a weak act for pity… and no, he was much, much worse. Every part of him spoke of pain, so boldly expressed that even _he_ couldn’t miss it. “No, we just found out for sure, okay? And we really need to have a talk about all that after you maybe calm down.”

Because as it was Loki didn’t look like he could stay on his feet for another minute, let alone speak with reason.

Calm down. Stark wanted him to be _calm._ “How? How could you not _tell_ me, how could you _help_ me?” Loki pleaded, his voice cracking on a painful high- his throat, oh it hurt so badly, he’d been crying all night- because he just couldn’t do this. Oh, gods, he had been trying so hard, _why_ had this happened? “You let me walk around with them, try to help them all after what I did?”

There had been so many coming to him in that clinic. They had always thanked him for his work and he had always been so _proud._ “Because you don’t even remember doing it, Loki. You said yourself that you didn’t want to be punished for something you may as well not have done.” Stark was still moving away from him as he spoke, hands up in either exasperation or defense. “You said you’d want to help them!”

“I did not know what it would be _like_!” Darkness fluttered across Loki’s vision as he screamed, and he was forced to stumble and grab the edge of an end-table to keep on his feet, he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t want to. He hadn’t slept for a moment. Not sure how he’d ended up at this door, when he’d staggered out of May’s home, what he wanted.

Blood, pleasure, dead, dying. Too many. And this man had known, he had let him go free _._ “I did not think that I had been looking in the eyes of my own _victims_ for weeks. I have been tending to people for pain _I_ caused!” His head was pounding, it had been hurting all night, sometimes so badly he could hardly move; like now, and he had no idea whether that or the words brought tears to his eyes but he was crying, and it only made it so much worse. “What would you tell them, Stark? That you thought they deserved to cozy up to their-their children’s _killer_ , or that you thought he should have a second chance?!”

The scar at Loki’s temple pulsed with pain again; he gasped and staggered, Stark’s retreat halting as he took a half step forward. “Okay, you need to get to a hospital.”

“No!” He didn’t have the strength to put into it but the man stumbled back anyway, hands lifting up once more at his sides. Why was he just dealing with this? He looked almost calm, only worried, as if his biggest concern here was for Loki’s health and gods _damn_ it did he not know what had happened, did he not care at all?

Another step forward; he was so angry he was shaking, felt numb. “You should have told me the very moment you knew, damn you. How long? How fucking long have you been hiding this from me?!”

“We barely found out two days ago! I had to figure everything out before I could tell you!” Stark said more, but it was lost in the beat of Loki’s headache, his mouth’s movements vanishing behind a blur of tears, tilting.

“Liar!” The shout was more than he could give. Loki’s world was flipped, trembling (or was that him?), his knees took him half a step forward before they gave out and how could he have destroyed so much when he could not even stand, what sort of killer collapsed under their own sobs?

They flooded him, drowned his vision and thoughts in black water. By the time he could think again something very soft was against his forehead, and there was a firmness wrapped around his shoulders that only had him crying harder with relief. It was stupid, ridiculous of him, he shouldn’t be wanting _comfort_ after what he’d learned; he was just so, so tired of being in pain. If Stark was going to hold him like this then fine, fine, it was not as though he had the strength to protest.

“Okay, shit, Loki, you know what just happened?” _Happened?_ “No, you don’t, that’s just awesome. Look at me- you breathing okay? You just had a seizure, you need a doctor, the existential crisis can wait. Can you get up?”

It didn’t seem worth the effort to try. Loki could barely process the words, let alone care about their implications, and he didn’t need to try to move to know he couldn’t. If his head shook at all it was just enough for Tony to feel against his chest, the hand that had somehow found his hair giving it a soothing stroke. No, no he couldn’t, thank the gods, he was just so _tired_ , a whimper rose high in his throat, drowning out the pain of a sob.

He couldn’t tell what Stark was saying, but he was glad for it. Somehow he managed to breathe evenly again, vaguely aware that the man had taken to rubbing circles in his back only once he’d stopped. Why was he doing that? Loki couldn’t think just now why he would ever want him to stop, he was the only thing keeping the knife in his head at bay.

Everything shifted. It was his cheek up against the cloth of Stark’s shirt, not his forehead, and his body was so light, drifting…

Jesus fuck, did this guy eat rocks for every meal or what? Loki was like dead weight in his arms, probably didn’t even know that he was asleep. _From a hundred to zero, huh?_ Couldn’t really blame him. At least something had gotten him out, he’d looked absolutely starved for sleep- not that Tony thought a seizure was a good way of going about getting it.

He grunted as he hefted Loki up for a better grip, his lower back declaring mutiny under such unfair treatment. It would have to do. He couldn’t just leave anyone- even Loki- to pass out on his floor after something like that, and his body still shook with minute contractions every few seconds that told Tony they weren’t clear yet. God, he looked so… his lips were half parted, his eyes dark and sunken around the edges, hair in wild curls that just barely displayed the scar beneath. Had this happened before? He hadn’t even seemed aware of it.

Bruce wasn’t going to like getting up this early after the night they’d had, but unless Tony wanted to give Loki up to SHIELD then he didn’t have much of a choice. What did Odin want from him, repentance? Because he sure as hell had that in spades, so much of it that it was damn near killing him.

He was a superhero, he should be able to carry one unconscious guy to an elevator. Tony took it slowly, because Loki was heavy enough that he could easily end up dropping him otherwise, so he’d only made it three or four steps before somebody came pounding down the stairs to his rescue.

“Brother!” Thor sprinted down the stairs and took up the burden of Loki’s weight in a few swift, smooth seconds, leaving Tony blinking in surprise. “What happened? JARVIS only told me that he was here, with you, and in distress.”

“Had a seizure- it’s a long story. Let’s get him set up somewhere first, okay? I imagine those take a whole lot out of you.” Loki didn’t claim to know his brother, but his body sure did; he was already curling into his brother’s form, as small as possible in the blond’s ridiculous arms. “Got plenty of spare rooms, let’s take him up to, ah…. Jane still coming?”

Thor glanced up- he’d been looking down to Loki, murmuring quietly to calm him- and shook his head. “Nay. I would have liked to see her again, yet I did not think it wise for her to be here.”

“Right, and Pepper’s off, so eighth floor’s all open.” The elevator opened conveniently as they approached it, already lit up for the floor in question, and as soon as Thor had settled, carefully, inside it set off, thankfully much slower than normal.  The floor barely rocked, and Loki remained perfectly oblivious in his brother’s grasp.

Fuck was he a mess, hair all in his face. They were close enough that he could just lean over and brush that out of the way, so he folded his arms tight as they would go instead, because that wouldn’t be the first time he’d given into a crazy urge. Hard not to feel a little protective, right? Guy looked absolutely pathetic.

Well, he could assess that later, much bigger problems for the moment.

Like Thor’s critical eye and the very defensive way he was holding Loki. “What happened, Tony? Loki would not have come here without reason, and you are the only one of us he is able to contact.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.” Maybe he shouldn’t have said that, Thor was starting to look pissed and he had learned that it was better not to be on the receiving end of his anger. “I don’t know details, so don’t get all interrogative on me here, okay? He found out about… what he did.”

“How?”

“What’d I just say? I have no idea. Maybe it’s comin’ back to him, except he knew that _I_ knew for sure, so something had to tell him. Unless someone hacked SHIELD- which I do all the time, and I’d’ve caught it if anyone tried- then it had to be one of our guys.” And only one of them had any sort of incentive to do it.

But Clint had both Natasha and JARVIS watching him, so how the hell could he have gotten out, let alone found Loki and managed to convince him of who he was? Thor was clearly thinking the same thing, and Tony didn’t want an archer with a broken anything, so he hastened to continue. “Or maybe he found some sort of proof on the reconstruction site itself, there’s tons of stuff out there that SHIELD hasn’t been able to clean up yet.”

“Unlikely. Your systems are not fully repaired after Loki’s attack, and much of the tower has not been wholly built at all. Barton found a way out, I am sure of it,” Thor growled. “I will speak with him later.”

Okay, that was going to go well. Yeah. Probably should intervene with that… or just make C

ap do it, that was a _much_ better idea. They took the rest of the ride in silence, and Thor was uncharacteristically solemn as he carried Loki out of the elevator and down the hall, into the one room Tony had that was both fully furnished and guaranteed to be empty- there _had_ been more but, well, this guy here’d made short work of most of the place.

Pepper’d stayed in here. She had a surprising amount of tolerance, but Tony couldn’t help thinking she wouldn’t really approve of having a supervillain sleeping in her bed. Still, it was the softest bed in the place with the fluffiest comforter and best blackout curtains, sort of overwhelmingly relaxing, the best place for Loki to rest. Thor cast the room a look of relieved approval before settling Loki into the bed; Tony, almost without thinking, pulled aside the blankets and tossed them over the gods’ shoulders, startled to see just how small he looked n them.

 

 _‘Nother time, Stark, ‘nother time._ “JARVIS, give Bruce a call and send him up here, would you, buddy?”

_“Already done, Sir. And might I add that Mr. Barton is, to my knowledge, still resting peacefully in his room. As far as I am aware, he has not left it since retiring last evening.”_

“Run a diagnostics.”

 _“As you wish, Sir._ ”

Loki let out a sighing breath in his sleep, tossing one of those ridiculous curls out of his face. Hard to believe he was looking at a mass murderer. When he’d come down to Earth before he hadn’t given half a damn about what he’d done, not even after his defeat, hadn’t even bothered to _fake_ guilt. Would have been much easier if he’d been playing them now, but there was no way even he could play a part that well.

Thor’s hand was hovering by Loki’s head, and it took a slightly familiar pull in the air for Tony to realize he wasn’t just being careful, he was doing _magic._ Since when did Thor know magic? Was summoning lightning and thunder magic? Maybe, it had always just seemed like _Thor_. “Uh, so, what is this?”

“Hm?” Thor’s hand slipped as his concentration did, and he blinked at Tony as though he’d forgotten his presence. So he could do it, but not easily. “Do not look so surprised, my friend, anyone on Asgard can perform the most basic spells. You said you believe the Chitauri may have left some remnant of their power in my brother’s brain, I am merely looking for it.”

“Any luck?”

“It depends on your definition, I suppose. There is some form of energy that is not his own, and yet it seems to be doing nothing but _being_. It does not feel like a spell, not a normal one, anyway…” Thor frowned, fingers twitching slightly as they passed over Loki’s uninjured temple. “Here. It shouldn’t be so strong in one spot like this.”

He gave Loki’s head a gentle nudge, prompting him to turn it lazily over. With the area exposed properly, Thor carefully pressed two fingers along his marble skin and frowned all the deeper. “There is something here, past his skull. I cannot tell what.”

Rather than pull away he simply spread out his hand to pass soothingly through Loki’s hair, the tang of magic gone from the air. “Guess we’re getting him that MRI after all. You have those up on Asgard? Big things, scan your head, show all the goodies inside?”

“No. A healer may use a soulforge if the case is entirely uncertain, but with something such as this a proper one would need only her own skill.”

“Come on, let us have _one_ thing.”

“Your people are young, and you will grow in your own way. I see no shame in that. You are certainly more rapid in it than any other realm, the rest of us take a few hundred years to decide we do not like something,” Thor admitted, shaking his head. “Now is not the time to discuss this, my friend. If the Chitauri have retained an interest in my brother it is not for anything good, and Heimdall has made no progress in detecting Thanos or his fleet. We may have little time to act.”

“Got any ideas, then? Because I’m… well, I’m actually lost here.” Tony shrugged and tossed up his hands, not ashamed to admit that all _this_ was a little bit beyond him. “If we need to, we’ll fight. We’re good at biting back, but for once we’ve got a chance to make the first move, and I’m kind of hoping we can take it.”

“Were it up to me I would fly to meet Thanos immediately, and lay waste to his forces before they can grow in strength or number. Yet few if any could follow me, let alone without being destroyed in the course,while the location is so uncertain, and my father would not risk opening the bifrost freely to the mad titan’s territory.” Thor scowled, clearly finding this an unnecessary precaution- or maybe just more of a danger than a help. “They must be waiting for something, or they would have attacked long ago. We must find out what that is.”

“Easier said than done. Unless it’s somewhere in there,” Tony amended, gesturing towards Loki’s head. The god hadn’t moved since Thor had turned his head, and his lips were beginning to look a little pale. How long had he known? Enough to tear him apart, but considering the news itself that could have been anywhere from half an hour to eight.

“Wow, you actually tucked him in. That’s a new level of weird for you, Stark,” Natasha’s voice declared, followed moments later by the spy’s calm entrance, Bruce trailing just behind. Oh, of course she knew, how wouldn’t she? Fucking omniscient Russian. “Huh. He really _is_ out. Thought he’d be tricking you.”

“Hey, I can be counted on to recognize a _little_ lie now and then!”

“Mm hmm. Of course you can.” She folded her arms, expression not quite as hard as Tony’d expected it to be. “That kid will be looking for him soon. Do we have a plan to deal with that? We really don’t want him getting mixed up in things, even if he can swing around on fancy webs.”

Thor frowned, now with more confusion than anger. “Webs? I did not know Earth had any Arachne, can they truly be male here?”

“You know, suddenly he’s not as bad as he could be,” Tony decided.

“Another time, Thor. Tony, pull that blanket back, I need to check him over,” Bruce declared, lifting a bag of medical supplies up onto the bedside table. “And ‘Tasha’s right, it sounds like Parker makes things… messy.”

Pull the blanket back, sure, but he looked so damn _comfortable_ right now, was that really necessary? Yeah, fine. Doctor’s orders. Tony sighed and slipped the comforter away, trying not to wince when Loki’s hand made some pitiful grab for it, fell tiredly limp again. “Unless one of you does a _really_ good Loki impression then I think we’re out of luck, there. Maybe we can give _him_ amnesia.”

“Impressions- good thinking, Stark. Give me his phone,” Natasha ordered calmly, sticking her hand straight out as though Tony could just materialize cellular devices on a whim.

“Excuse me?”

“Look at his clothes, he probably wore those through the night. Phone’s going to be in his pocket, get it for me.”

Fish around in Loki’s pants, okay, no big deal. Tony scooted past Bruce (who’d pulled up Loki’s shirt and was listening carefully to his heartbeat) to loot for his stuff- only for Thor to knock him aside and pull the phone away, eyes crinkled with annoyance. “Is this necessary? My brother deserves his privacy.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m with Thor- can you all step out for a minute?” Bruce didn’t even look up, gesturing vaguely out the door without looking away from his work, except for a sidelong glance to Thor. “He’s going to be okay, you know. He’s stable for now, I think it was mostly stress that caused the seizure. We’ll get him some food and water when he’s up, and an MRI for dessert.”

The joke fell a little flat, but Bruce’s smile made up for it. Thor unfolded his arms and nodded, opened his mouth and shut it again in silence. Looking almost mournful he turned his back on the bed and led the way to the hall, Natasha flipping through Loki’s (hacked) phone as they went. Tony took the rear so he could shut the door, and sneak one last lingering look through the vanishing gap.

Yeah, time for him to get some rest. God knew he deserved it.

“What are you doing with that?” Thor wondered, more confused than suspicious as he regarded Natasha’s actions. “I do not think Loki keeps any information of use in that device, and surely you can find Parker’s number elsewhere?”

“I’m getting a feel for how he texts. _Thank_ fully, he seems to send a lot of them, so Parker won’t think anything of him not calling… or, apparently, spending the night with a stranger. Thor, did you know your brother’s a bit of a-” Natasha broke off, giving him a sideways look. “Anyway, give me a few minutes, I’ll make sure he doesn’t suspect a thing. You two should be looking into how Clint managed to get out last night.”

“I do not need to _look in_ to it. I will go and have the truth from Barton for myself.”

“Thor, you can’t barge in there treating him like a criminal. No,” she lifted a finger, warning, “You can’t. He won’t listen, and it wouldn’t be fair to him, not after what Loki did. You don’t know how badly he got to him, he hasn’t been the same since New York. I know Loki needs help, but Clint does too.”

“Aye, Natasha, I know that. I assure you, I know well how badly Loki’s actions can hurt people. I will not be accusing, but I do not deal in secrets when there is a clear path ahead of me.”

Okay, this could go on forever. Tony gave Thor’s beefy arm a quick pat in farewell, head already spinning with conflict. “Pick and choose how to deal with that mess, guys. I’m going to go and see about a discreet hospital setup. You two,” he pointed between them both, two terrifying people who looked _very_ annoyed with him, “can have fun with the emotional wrecking ball that is our archer. Call me when he’s, uh, when’s up, okay?”

Another gesture to the door, just in case they’d forgotten, before Tony more or less fled down the hall. Loki, not ten hours ago he had just been _Loki_ , sitting at dinner and infuriating in his easy manner, so why now?

Son of a bitch. He could have just gone on not caring about anything, and spared Tony a lot of trouble.

-

Loki’s head felt like it had been filled with bricks when he tried to lift it, his eyelids thick and somehow sticky. Why did waking up have to be so hard? It hadn’t been _quite_ this bad since those first few weeks, but he had his bad days, where the mattress was a more tempting prospect than any activity could be. Now… now was one of those, yes, he was so tired and he couldn’t even imagine forcing his eyes open, so why was he awake?

He couldn’t remember falling asleep. This wasn’t his room, was it? Maybe he’d passed out in front of May, or a customer, or at the clinic. He didn’t want to be in the hospital again. He hated going to the hospital, they should just let him sleep on his own, but this… this wasn’t his bed, was it? Where was he? This didn’t feel right, something was- wrong, he was forgetting again, wasn’t he?

Loki’s fear weighed out his exhaustion, and his reluctant eyes opened as wide as he could force them. The light was dim, enough that he barely recognized that he did _not_ recognize his surroundings at all before a voice spoke at his side. “Loki? It’s alright, you’re safe.” He knew that voice, he _did_ , but… Loki turned his head, eyes unconsciously pleading, to find a man with curly brown hair and simple glasses, altogether plain. Still, he knew him. Right, from dinner. Who _was_ he? God, his head hurt.

“I’m Bruce Banner,” he explained, slowly, calmly, as if he knew. “You’re in Stark tower, mid Manhattan. Do you know why?”

No. No, he did, it was just… not coming. Damn it, _why_ , it was right there, why couldn’t he get it? “Okay, no problem. You came by early this morning, to talk to Tony Stark about something that was bothering you. We, uh, don’t really know too many details- you got agitated and had a seizure, then fell unconscious. You’ve slept for about,” he looked quickly to his watch, “seven hours.”

Bothering him. That was definite, there was so much bothering him, he could only imagine what it might have been. And he _was_ trying to remember, so hard his poor head was almost numb with pounding. “Why am I still here?” He should be leaving now, he was awake and he did not want to be in this place. He tried to sit upright but his body wouldn’t cooperate- he didn’t hurt, he didn’t… much, actually.

“Well, you were unconscious, so we didn’t really think you would do too well on the subway,” Banner explained, turning away to a bedside. Loki couldn’t see what he was doing, which he was glad for. “And you don’t need a hospital, just lots of rest and some food.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Okay, this is where I start to sound really creepy, but the house told me you were waking up.” He turned over his shoulder, enough for a brief glance, and waved up toward the ceiling. “There’s an AI; monitors most things, and he kept an eye on your heartbeat. You don’t have to be up for long, I just want you to finish off this food and water for now.”

Loki was about to press the house issue when the doctor offered him a glass and a plate, which seemed to tempt his tired form enough that he managed to lift his hand to take a drink. That was nice. More of that, then.

The food was good, whatever it was. Wished he could see it, his eyes just wouldn’t stay open more than a crack, and if he kept trying he would just… Just… Something had happened last night, right? Yes, and it had been about Stark, that was why he was here. Not in the bed, maybe, but the building.

He finished the water but not the food, which Banner didn’t comment on when he set the plates aside, deciding that he wanted to just sleep for awhile more. Then the door creaked, as if it was trying very hard not to be overheard, and a man slipped through. _Oh, my. Well, hello to you._ Even sleepy Loki could appreciate _that_ sight. He perked his head up to appreciate the view, wishing he had the energy to smile. Not a hospital, but if he maybe stuck around a little longer… tall, muscular, and gorgeous was worth waking up for.

“Brother!” Oh god damn it. “I am sorry, of course you do not remember- I am your brother, Thor. We were separated just before you lost your memory.”

Maybe he was dreaming. There was… brothers? No, he did not remember a sibling, and they looked nothing alike. “Are you- a-are you sure?”

“Yes, of course. Adopted, actually, yet still we are brothers.” Which carried something strange with it, more than Loki could decipher right now. “It is a lot to think about, I am sure, and I will happily answer any and all questions soon. But Tony has finally found a private doctor and a lab, and they are waiting for us.”

“What?” This was all said mostly to Banner, with a glance or two to Loki, as if trying hard to ensure he was kept involved. “Tony… Stark, of course. Why? I don’t want to go anywhere.”

“I know, I am sorry, we thought to move you while you slept. If you can rest again you do not need to be awake, but you must come,” Thor said. And almost apologetically. Who was he to be ordering him around, and why would Loki agree to go _anywhere_ with these people while he was unconscious

Because they were brothers, apparently. Loki wouldn’t have believed any of it, but he couldn’t help trusting him, and he was so tired- besides, Stark would be there. At least he would have someone familiar, even if every time he saw him he seemed to end up fainting. “Why are you bringing me there?”

“You need an MRI, so we can identify what caused that seizure. I promise, it will not take long.”

“Why- can’t that be any doctor?” A seizure, right. He might not have been in any immediate danger, but Loki had still had a _seizure._ There was something wrong with his brain, and that was going to really bother him when he was a little less… fuzzy.

Loki had to remember that they were brothers, or it was going to start being very strange that Thor was looking at him like that, and giving his hand a squeeze. Stranger that he was okay with it. “Because the matter is very, well, sensitive.”

“Yeah, we uh, kind of think there might be an alien beacon in your head,” Banner explained, sort of playing with his hands and shrugging as if to say ‘well, what do you do?’

Oh, gods, he just… if he didn’t wake up or fall under right this moment then he was going to cry, his mind had never felt so _full._ Brother, aliens, seizure, doctor, Stark, and no idea where Peter even was. Okay. Okay. “I’m going to go to sleep now,” Loki decided, his voice even weaker than his nod as he rolled to his side, trying to think of nothing but the cold pillow.

There was a lot of moving after that. Most of it passed in dreams- bizarre ones, of rocking on huge longships through a roaring ocean, or riding a tossing dragon on a backdrop of storm- with a few flashes of reality, ignored as well he could. The stranger’s car that took him to an unfamiliar hospital where a man he didn’t know had him lying under a bright light and there were people he knew without knowing, because he was doing his best not to until he thought he could.

And then there was more moving, back to the wrong building, that comfortable bed and just not wanting to care anymore.

Of course, he had to. Loki could try all he liked but he could not ignore what he had heard, nor pretend it hadn’t brought him here. So hours later, genuinely awake at last, he lay deep in thought, unsure whether to rouse himself for a confrontation or sneak out in the dark, or just… decipher all this.

He had a brother, apparently. Thor, one of the Avengers, whom he’d heard plenty about, and the name really did fit. He should have been quite excited about that; he had a _family_ , but it came with the guilt of a few hundred lives. And, potentially, some sort of alien device implanted in his head.

Loki’s head gave a throb, and he pressed the palm of his hand up against it with a wince. He needed to call Peter. He and May had to be wondering where he was by now, and with the boy’s uncanny sense for danger he had to know there was something wrong keeping them apart. It would be safer for him, gods knew, than to stay here in a tower full of the people who had banded together to defeat him. But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t even _think_ about facing them now, knowing what he’d done. Somehow he had managed to avoid them both when he’d stumbled in a painful daze out of the building that morning, but if he returned they would undoubtedly cross paths a few dozen times a day and whenever they did he would have to think about how they had no idea a murderer was sharing their spare room.

He should call. He could come up with any number of reasons why he was gone- wasn’t there a possibility, something called a fugue state, that he would forget everything since getting amnesia once his memory recovered? Loki supposed the Avengers could help him in fabricating that, since they seemed… invested in his future.

They either wanted him imprisoned, or they had something they needed for him. Either way he could hardly refuse, could he? Yet… Stark had hidden it from him, so discovering what he really was could somehow have put a damper on their plans, if indeed they had any.

Loki shuddered, wrapping the blanket up about his shoulders and trying to ignore that he was seeking comfort he did not deserve. Okay. He had never been alone like this before. It was pathetic, but there had always been someone else holding his hand. That didn’t mean he couldn’t learn. He had never even filed for a credit card but he could do… this. Whatever this was. He did not even know the next step, except waiting in trembling silence for anyone to come through and tell him what was going to happen to him.

And for some idiotic reason, he hoped it would be Stark.

He knew him, that was all, in both of these bizarre worlds he found himself trapped between. Stark had brought him his name and first introduced the possibility- reality- of who he was, even been the first to bring him into these new medical concerns. He had lied to him, yes, and yet he was there, a little more than was perhaps appropriate, even. He had known that Loki was wrong and shown his hatred for all he’d done before, while acknowledging that… he did not want to be blamed. He knew he deserved it entirely, gods knew he deserved it, he just- he did not want to have _done_ anything, and even knowing he had he was so afraid of whatever would come.

A deep, deep breath. Loki had no desire to have another- incident, he’d just call it that- so he took a few of those, turning on his side and breathing inward, almost relaxed when a hand came down on his shoulder.

His body moved like a whip against his control, striking the touch away and snapping upright, shit, nearly tipping off the mattress- What? Stark was in his room, staring at him in surprise. Loki gaped back, and the man threw his arms up defensively. “Whoa, okay! Sorry, I just thought we had a sort of- you know what, no touching, that’s fine.”

“What are you doing here?” Loki demanded, breathlessly baffled. His heart should have been hammering in fear, why was there relief there too?

“JARVIS called.”

“JARVIS.”

 _“That would be me, Sir Loki.”_ Oh, right, the omnipotent AI. _“You said Mr. Stark’s name at least six times in succession without any apparent motive, and I deemed it wise to alert him to the fact.”_

Loki could have done without that knowledge, really. “And you came. Why?”

“You are an incredibly suspicious person, you know that? You’ve had a shitty day,” the Avenger pointed out, shrugging and taking a seat on the bed as though he… well, he did own it. Gods, he needed to get home, if he even had one. “Besides, we have a lot to talk about with you. If you want, I’ll call up the others.”

This time when Stark reached for him, Loki didn’t fight it. “Please don’t. I am having a hard enough time talking to just you right now and I know that’s just _pathetic_ but-” He didn’t want to cry in front of Tony; or at all, actually. Yet he would rather sob his eyes out like a child before the whole world before he took even a chance of encountering the archer again. “What did they find?”

A normal man would have insisted that the doctor come in here and explain properly, or at least that Loki’s only family be permitted to come and share the news. Thankfully this one was entirely tactless, and only hesitated for a second. “You remember the Chitauri?”

“I know of them.”

“Right. Well, when you were down on Earth doing all their busy work they needed a way to talk with you, so they put- or you did, honestly we have no idea- a machine in your head. Now they’re trying to use it again, presumably to find or use you so they can get back down. When they _do_ it sends off interference in your brain, which is causing those seizures and unchecked will probably kill you in… months, maybe a year. We can have it out in an hour, tops.”

Stark’s hand had grown tense, and the nervous coil of his body gave off an almost physical wave of unease, but his voice was calm. A device, planted in his head. There had to be more to it (who would create a communications system that killed its users? How did such a thing even work?) that he did not at the moment care to hear. Loki nodded, slowly as he could. “And there is a catch, I presume?”

Stark smiled at that, all one-sided with a sort of pained crinkle by the eye. “Get that, did you? Yeah, there is. The thing goes both ways, so while it’s active I can track the signal back and hopefully get a location on the Chitauri so we can deal with them before they come any closer to our planet. We can’t take another hit like you gave us. We’d survive, sure, we’re durable people, but we wouldn’t do it well. And it… needs _you_ to be active.”

It needed to stay where it was, dragging him toward his grave, in other words. “So- you… you won’t remove it?” Two desperate pleas were pounding in Loki’s throat, begging him to _say no_ , _say yes_ , and somehow all he could think was that the snow was falling faster beyond that window, and nobody was home to help May shovel the path.

“That’s up to you. Even if Thor would allow it, we’re supposed to be the good guys. We don’t force people to slowly kill themselves for our science experiments. Some of us might want to, but it’s not going to happen.”

Oh. They weren’t telling him to die for this, for them, they were asking it. To make the decision to slowly grow weaker and sicker as some foreign _thing_ in his brain rebelled against him. Why? Loki had caused all this, he had tried to conquer a planet, how could they allow its future to depend on his choice?

He did not want to die.

He did not want _them_ to die, either.

In less than a breath, a swarm of questions ran through Loki’s mind: How was the device supposed to be killing him, how did they even know the threat was there, why did it need to stay in his head for them to track it, would they be able to do their work before he was ever in any real danger?

It didn’t matter. None of it, except that he believed Stark was telling as much of the truth as they knew. He didn’t even need to think, which was a blessing- he hadn’t wanted this choice, and having none soothed him deeply. “I’ll do it.”

“You know what that’s gonna mean, right?” Stark’s eyes were almost comically wide, and why not? Loki was still reeling with how quickly the answer had come. “It’s going to be painful. I’m really good at this, bragging fully intended, but even if I have all this settled in a week that’s still one week of shit. Whatever’s going on in there might be permanent too.”

“Then you’ll just have to take care of me, won’t you?” In all honesty, it was _meant_ to be a joke, but when he felt the plea in his chest Loki didn’t bother to hide it. He felt… cold, a little numb, and there was so much rising up on him. He couldn’t bear a tide like that without help, and he knew there were plenty who were willing to give it, yet Thor was some otherworldly _grand_ thing, frightening, and Peter, Gwen, May, they just cared too _much._

He was scared. He could feel it, slowly creeping up through him, biding its time and digging long claws into his gut. There was so much more to face and know waiting to push him over the edge; some might bring him peace, but now he just… needed something simple.

And by yet another miracle he did not deserve, Stark reached out and gave it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint- I'm not sure how I feel about it, but at least I hope it's coherent!


End file.
